


Of Whom We Were

by staytrashy



Category: Supernatural
Genre: DeanBenny BigBang 2015, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Kid Fic, M/M, Post-Season 9 Finale canon divergence, Purgatory Fic, it isnt major character death if theyre already dead haha am i right?, kid!Dean, protective!benny, soul fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-15
Updated: 2015-06-15
Packaged: 2018-04-04 09:28:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 42,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4132381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/staytrashy/pseuds/staytrashy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Benny Lafitte had accepted his fate after being sent to Purgatory for a second round. He knew he would never plant his boots on Earth again, and it was fine.  He was fine. He’d rather focus on the present instead of the past as he tried to keep himself alive.</p><p>But then Benny’s world lit up like a redneck’s Fourth of July, and he was mighty taken aback when a certain hunter appeared in front of him in a flurry of limbs, dirt, and freckles. Now all Benny could focus on was why Dean Winchester had come back, and why he was eight years old.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Whom We Were

**Author's Note:**

> Goodness, the DeanBenny BigBang 2015 is done, it's so surreal! Now it's time for me to let me show off my beautiful artist [smercurial](http://smercurial.tumblr.com/), I couldn't have been paired with a more talented and sweet person (and follow her, gosh, she's amazing. She looked at so many pictures of rocks for this fic, bless her) 
> 
> And I would just really want to thank [bumblebea933](http://bumblebea933.tumblr.com/) for taking the time to beta this fic, and the bae [wisepuma23](http://wisepuma23.tumblr.com/) for laughing with me about the single quote in this fic 'Shit, son' at who knows what time.
> 
> Hope you enjoy uwu

**INTRO**

If Purgatory had to be described with one word --a word other than 'pure' that was-- that word would have to be “disorganized”. And in all honesty Purgatory had a right to be that, what with the realm squashed between Heaven and Hell like some sort of a supernatural sandwich.

The monsters in Purgatory were of every breed imaginable, and everyone hated each other. The resulting fights were ever constant and ranged from a little scuffle to a war depending on how grumpy everyone was that day.

Nothing was in sync. The realm was never in complete turmoil, nor never in peace. Someone was always dying and someone was living. Some monsters never stopped moving, and some hibernated for centuries on end.

So the day _every single_ creature in the over-glorified monster hell looked up to the sky was certainly a day to be remembered. (It's a shame that there weren't any druids around anymore in Purgatory to record the event; they had been all hunted down and eaten centuries ago. Word on the street was that they surprisingly tasted like crocodile).

And it just so happened that one of these confused monsters was very special. Though he may have been the second inhuman creature to defy death and escape Purgatory, he was surely the first to come back willingly. It was Benjamin Charles Lafitte himself, a vampire who checked back into this ghastly afterworld for the second time a little over a year ago.

What a coincidence.

 

 

  
_Ya know, ya know, ya know..._  
_Go back to the country_  
_Yeah, go back to the country_  
_Feel a change is good for you_  
_When you keep convincin'_  
_Ah, don't keep convincin'_  
_What's that creeping up behind a you?_  
_It's just an old friend_  
_It's just an old friend_  
_And what's that he's got for you?_

‘ _Wearing and Tearing_ ' -Led Zeppelin

 

For Benny Lafitte, now seemed like it was good time to rest. He was tired, sore, and had full stomach --well, as full as he could be on monster blood, the equivalent of tofu chicken to the human race. His feet still hurt from five hours ago after running for his dear, dead life after a bolla had caught Benny’s scent near ' _his_ ' tree. Benny thought it was all crazy. No one had their own trees. No one owned anything in Purgatory except maybe the clothes on their backs, if they had clothes, that was, and their bodies. Not any damn trees or territory.

Sighing, Benny found a log and sat down with his back against the rough bark, resting for what seemed like the first time in a week. Who knew, maybe it was for the first time in a week. He took off his cap with one hand and lightly dropped it on the ground as he let out another big breath. He was in the more wooded part of Purgatory, and he lazily watched the leaves of the taller trees sway in the noiseless wind.

One day when he built up the gumption to, Benny would take himself on a little expedition around the hellhole. He would try see all of the different Purgatory regions that made up his afterlife, because why not? All he knew now was that there were rivers and woods, but surely there had to be something more. An ocean for the sea monsters? A desert for the creatures that used to call the Sahara desert home? A mountain area for all those goat-legged bastards?

He was just getting nice and comfortable when the sky lit up in light from above him. It wasn’t as if there was a slow buildup of light to give any warning. It was just suddenly _there_.

The old vampire startled as light streaked across the sky and poured through the gaps in the woods. It was almost too bright, and everything became illuminated by the unexpected rays. Benny looked up to the sky as his mouth gaped open. ’ _Holy hell_ ’ and ’ _Well, shit_ ’ were among the most pronounced of his thoughts as his mind scrambled to understand what was happening. Great white light, pure and magnificent --why, now this definitely couldn't be Hell-- streaked across the sky like lightning with a mind for vengeance. He found himself pushing his back against the tree as for once he could see that the sky looked like it actually had a color instead of the ever present gray-ish hue that it proudly boasted. It looked... blue. Like an actual _sky_ , but with a frightfully bright and angry-looking moving cloud of light smack dab in the middle of it.

Benny wasn’t sure his jaw could drop any farther until he looked down at his hands. The dappled light that shone down past the trees was dancing on his skin in shimmering twirls. The vampire moved his hand and fingers, marveling at the dancing light as much as a kid would. The cloud above Benny was swirling more quickly than any cloud had a right to. Its edges weren’t fluffy or neat like the clouds he would see in the park. Rather they were long swindles reaching out and doing all sorts of acrobatics that it almost made him dizzy.

The dark shadows of Purgatory were lit up until nothing could be hidden, and creatures all around hissed and sputtered in annoyance. So it was now when every creature of the dark looked up to witness the spectacular sight while Benny Lafitte was having some sort of undead heart attack (was that a heartbeat he felt or just his entire body about to be torn apart by its seams?).

The damn ground began moving too, vibrating. Rocks on the ground began violently jumping and the spindly trees around him began groaning worringly. The leaves began rustling together and created a hissing sound as if they were trying to impersonate a rattlesnake’s rattler. Benny dropped his weapon onto his lap and began digging his dirtied hands into the shaking ground; it gave him a little sense of security despite all the trembling. His eyes snapped toward his hat which was hopping along with the rocks and sticks and just hoped it wouldn’t bounce away.

This was it. The world was ending. The old Christian Rapture had started, and they weren’t only taking out Earth, but also Purgatory with it. Damn all the heavenly bodies, that’s what Benny thought. There was no way he would be getting a golden ticket into Heaven so he might as well go out cursing.

But his world didn't come undone. Before the light could spread across the entire sky it stopped halfway in its path. It made the sky seem split up into two parts: one half was a brilliant blue with a giant swirling white cloud, and the other half was like Purgatory’s normal dim illustration of a sky. Benny was going to let out a sigh of relief when he realized he saw movement in the corner of his eye.

The vampire squinted up. Something else was rearing its ugly head up and seeping into the other half of the sky, because that was just what they needed. The already greyish sky began getting darker as pitch black tendrils slowly moved its way through it. It looked like a giant container of black ink had been spilt onto a piece of wet paper, and it began trickling its way towards the unmoving white.

The black wisps finally reached midway and began twisting around the white. It moved slowly at first, as it seemed to be oozing into it, infecting it like a virus. Benny rubbed his eyes. No, he wasn't crazy, the bright light seemed to be trying to twist away from the black, but the dark haze persisted on. What the _hell_ was going on? It looked like a war was happening in Purgatory’s sky.

It took a second through his amazement for Benny to realize that he was staring up at a giant light and that his body wasn’t burning up into a fit of smoke and little Benny bits. Being damned as he was, that was impossible. Any sign of bright _anything_ left him wincing and grumbling for some aloe. He shouldn't be able to stare directly into whatever the hell this light was. He tore his gaze from above and lifted his hands from the ground, which had thankfully calmed down a considerable amount, to stare at his hands. He flexed them. Nothing hurt.

Maybe it wasn’t a light at all.

Benny drew his knees up to his chest and watched as the dark, wicked thing took over it’s struggling opponent. It was like some twisted firework show. It was darkening his world and the shadows began creeping back as the color of the sky began to fade. It was almost a relief to have the shadows return to Purgatory; no one wanted to see what laid hidden under all those crooks and crannies.

The last of the white seemed to be trying to stretch way --to flee?-- but the blackness consumed its spreading limbs. It had almost swallowed the white cloud when the cloud made its last attempt at escape. Something that looked like to be a ball formed in its fading tendrils and it soundlessly detached from its host and shot down to the ground like a falling star. It sailed over Benny’s hatless head as he watched with a mixture of sick interest and confusion. He didn’t know whether to be sad, indifferent, or glad when the blackness consumed the other light. Didn't know whether to be scared or confused when it began dragging itself away and just…. up until it was a speck and vanished.

“Well, huh,” Benny said brilliantly as he and the rest of Purgatory stared above them. Whatever the hell that had been about, he wasn’t sure he wanted to know. It it wasn’t the Rapture, maybe the two other realms of eternal punishment and eternal blessing had been duking it out again, though he’d never seen _that_ little light show happen before.

What a bunch of assholes. Should he be relieved that it seemed to be over? Could he stop panicking that Purgatory --and therefore him-- would disappear into oblivion? They weren't going to come back for another fist round or two, right?

Benny frowned and tore his gaze away from the once again dim sky to where he had seen the ball of light disappear over the trees. If it was Heaven and Hell fighting, then that meant a property of Heaven had just crash landed itself into Purgatory.

Putting his hands on his knees to stand up with a groan, Benny forgot about his weapon that was resting in his lap and it fell to the ground. He was stuck between going towards the possible angelic being that could smite him, or running away while he still had the chance. What if it was Castiel, though? Benny hadn’t seen him Hot Wings since they had tried to escape Purgatory. What if the angel had somehow gotten himself stuck in this graveyard again? Knowing his unlucky track record, that could be likely. However if Castiel was here, then that meant another person would be right behind him. Benny wiped his hand down his face, fingers running over the permanent beard stubble that never grew.

Winchester.

He wasn’t avoiding the topic of that certain hunter, and he certainly didn’t have any ill-feelings towards him. It was just if he started thinking of him, then he wouldn’t stop. Benny would began worrying about all sort of nonsense, and he couldn't afford that type of distraction.

The vampire raised his eyebrows towards the direction the light fell, wishing all the trees would just become transparent for a few damn seconds so he could see past it all. Here he was wondering about what it would mean if Castiel was here, but he hadn’t been thinking about if it _wasn’t_ him. It could be easily any other angel who would smite the crap out of him without a second glance. Or it could not even be a holy being at all.

Benny gnawed on his lip as he thought. What was the chance it was Hot Wings? Probably very, _very_ slim. And if it was, the angel could track Benny down himself. You needed all the allies you could get in Purgatory.

It was better to be safe rather than sorry.

Benny began to walk back towards his weapon and hat, which was thankfully still there. But what if was Castiel? Every creature in Purgatory had seen that light go down, and he would bet on his new handcrafted ax that every damn thing would be going after it. The Leviathans could have recognised exactly who the light was and gone after the angel for revenge. Benny wanted to chew something other than his lip in frustration. He could go and search for the fallen light and possibly die permanently, or he could run away and risk a chance of not meeting up with an old friend.

If only he could tell what the thing was before he went after it.

 _Shit_. If he tried, maybe he could tell. Almost immediately after Castiel had appeared in Purgatory, every supernatural being could feel the righteous power that radiated from his presence. Just like how everything had heard the tempting heartbeat and soul of a living human with Winchester number one. Maybe if Benny hadn’t been tearing himself in two the entire time about decisions, he would have been able to sense what exactly crashed itself into his afterlife.

He took a deep breath and concentrated on his surroundings. The light had crash landed near him, so hopefully he could pick something up. Benny tried to hear a heartbeat or feel rivulets of holy grace, and he almost jumped when he actually felt something weird.

The vampire closed his eyes and tilted his head at the strange feeling. It wasn’t angelic, that was for sure. There was none of that certain power and ‘cleanliness’ radiating around. So it wasn’t Hot Wings or any other potentially dangerous angel.

He tried to concentrate harder. It felt warm and alive. It was almost… almost _human_ like, but not quite. Nothing was beating with life, there was no heartbeat. It was nothing like a certain hunter did when he was stuck in Purgatory. But even if the ball of light wasn’t human, it still had human qualities.

So it was neither a human nor an angel. Demon? If an angel could get stuck in monster heaven, why couldn’t a demon? Benny remembered hearing that there was a portal somewhere in Purgatory that the residents of Hell used. But the force didn’t feel sinister or anything Benny imagined a demon might feel like.

The thing wasn’t either human or angel. It would be a stupid move to follow after it to see what it was. Maybe it was some sort of new hybrid monster that was more malicious than the leviathans. The vampire nodded to himself, deciding it just wasn’t worth it, and started heading in the opposite direction.

He walked back to the tree he’d been leaning against and picked up his weapon and his hat. He snapped the fisherman cap back on his head, adjusted it a little bit, and looked tiredly at the tree. He had been hoping to rest, but now with some potentially dangerous being landing only a mile, if that, away from him, he better get going.

So with a grim nod and an adjustment to his falling suspender strap, Benny set off.

 

 

It took Benny almost one-half of a mile to realize he was being stalked by the monster he had been avoiding in the first place, which was just embarrassing. Now that he was aware of it, the signs had become so much clearer. He could hear a faint rustling in the woods as a creature steadily followed him, and it was actually panting.

So it was obviously either clumsy or just plain stupid. No right monster in its right mind would fumble so loudly when it was stalking its prey. It was practically declaring his presence.

Newbies.

The thing following him was a horrible example to all things predatory. He hadn’t wanted to cross paths with it, but it looked like the fallen monster had decided that they would. Maybe Benny had been the closest not-so-living thing near it and it was hungry. Great, now he had a ball of light stalking him. A ball of light that was making very interesting noises. It almost sounded like noises of distress.

Benny threw a glance behind him, wondering if he should just face now and kill the thing instead of dragging this out. His feet were mighty tired of walking. The sooner he got rid of it, the sooner he could sit down again. The creature didn’t sound like it could put up much of a fight anyways. It’d be over quick.

Benny absentmindedly tested the weight of his ax in his hand as he slowly came to a stop. Killing it would probably be doing the thing a favor. It was pathetic sounding, it had to be fatally injured from the fall. Benny knew that if he himself was suffering, he’d want another being to kill him as efficiently and quickly as possible.

Bushes rustled and Benny turned to face them with grim reluctance. He could make out a faint outline of his stalker, and he could hear it and even smell it from this close and--

Benny blinked.

It smelled familiar. The scent tingled in his nose as his mind tried to place it. Had he encountered this type of monster before? Last time he checked, he sure as hell didn’t remember any other ball of light falling to the ground. His grip tightened on his homemade blade as he could still only vaguely see the creature, using the bushes and trees for coverage so Benny couldn’t get a good look of it, getting closer.

Benny’s eyes narrowed. He was expecting some sort of hideous monster to melt out thin air. Something horrible and writhing in pain. He was expecting a gruesome creature that would be panting and disfigured --after all, falling from the sky wasn’t exactly a joy ride. In the fall, body parts must have snapped or moved to places they should not belong.

Instead something else was what stepped, practically stumbled, out of the shadows.

It was a small, little humanoid figure that fell out. All Benny saw was a flash of dark green and blue --was that denim?-- before the thing looked up, very quickly making the top five in Benny’s ‘Some Weird Shit’ list.

A kid.

It was a _kid_. A kid in Purgatory.

The kid looked… looked, well, human. It was a little boy, probably no more than eight years old, that fell out of the foliage and was staring up at Benny with big watery eyes and a snot-streaked face.

The vampire’s mind couldn’t even completely consider the idea that he had gone insane before the kid let out a sob before choking out, “B-Benny!” The thing didn’t try to reach out for him, just stood there with widened eyes, clutching at his dark green shirt and letting the mucus run down his face.

Benny had truly gone insane. He forgot to keep breathing, a habit he had acquired after being topside again so he didn’t scare any passerby.

A kid was in Purgatory. A kid who was currently bawling his little eyes out and knew his name.

The vampire’s eyes narrowed dangerously as he took a step back, which just seemed to make the thing sob harder. It had to be some sort of monster with shapeshifting abilities. Somehow it had managed to mold itself into a little boy, and it must have had some mind reading talent so he knew Benny’s name and-

And the little boy was now reaching out to him, never moving from his spot, and raising his arms up like a child would do when they wanted to be picked up. “ _Please_!” More tears ran down its face, a face that underneath the waterworks had plethora of freckles.

That one simple human genetic triggered a memory. A crazy thought entered Benny’s head as he watched the kid-shaped being have a meltdown. It was an utterly impossible thought which led him to studying the wailing thing more closely. If Benny had a beating heart, it would have been hammering away like crazy as he took in the little boy’s features.

Green eyes stared at Benny frightfully, and the creature still had its hands out towards him. Its hair was a tawny color and the nose was a bit off set. The freckles even traveled down his neck to what he could see of the thing’s shoulders. It was so achingly familiar but no, that wasn’t possible. He couldn’t let himself think that. Benny has seen some scary and misleading shit before and this was no different. He wouldn’t be falling for an old trick like this one.

But of course his mouth wasn’t with the program. It opened against his accord and asked in a soft voice, “Dean?”

The creature let out a hiccup that shook its upper body. It began nodding as his little hands dropped to his side and clutch at his shirt. “Be-”

“ _No_ ,” Benny interrupted with a rushed voice, and the thing looked shocked. No, this was wrong. _Dean_ was topside. He wouldn’t be coming back, and Benny knew that. Hell, he had accepted the hard truth before he even helped Sam and Bobby Singer leave. He was being foolish and letting himself hope.

“What _are_ you?” Benny took a small step forward, and the creature scrambled back with a betrayed look stamped on its face.

“Please,” the thing squeaked. It lurched itself backwards away from him with a whimper, promptly tripped on a root, and fell back on its bottom. It shielded its face by covering it with its arms. “I’m D-Dean!”

That thing wasn’t Dean Winchester.

The fingers in the hand holding his blade twitched as he bared his human set of teeth. Anger began boiling underneath his skin at the impostor. It _dared_ to make Benny think of the Winchester he’d hadn’t allowed to let himself dwell upon. “Like hell you are,” he snarled.

Dean wouldn’t be cowering. Dean Winchester, even as a little kid, would be defending himself to his best ability and putting on a fake brave front. He knew this. Dean himself told him this. He told Benny about the nights he’d watch over his little brother, looking back and forth between all the exits, of how he had come face to face with a shifter once and used himself as a distraction so Sam could crawl under the bed. If Benny knew anything, he knew this. This thing, whatever it was, was not his Dean.

Dean wouldn’t be crying.

The shape quivered as it slowly moved down its arms so it could look at Benny. Its face was messy and now its hands and arms were covered in dirt that stuck to the snot. “I am Dean,” it choked out in a petrified whisper.

Benny couldn’t help the cruel snort. He wasn’t that stupid, Benny had a lot of years on him. The thing, even if it looked like what Dean might have look like when younger, didn’t feel like his friend. Dean was alive with blood pumping loud through his veins, while this… this _thing_ didn’t. There was no pumping heart to tempt damned bloodsuckers like him.

The vampire took a deep breath through his nose. “ Don’t lie to me. Not to me.”

The creature shot Benny a wary gaze. It opened and closed its mouth a couple of times before babbling, “I’m… I’m n-not lying.”

The thing didn’t have a pulse, which meant it didn’t have a spiking heartbeat. Which meant Benny couldn’t tell if it was even lying. It didn’t even smell like anything. No scent of musk or blood or salty sweat like all humans did. It wasn’t his Dean.

“Sammy,” the thing spit out in a voice that was shaky and wrecked. It sounded like it had been crying for a much longer time. A small tiny part of Benny only saw the thing as what it was trying to portray; a child. And he was making a child cry his little heart out. He had to remind himself that this wasn’t a little kid. It was a monster.

The vampire wasn’t surprised that it knew the name of Dean Winchester’s little brother. “Any creature in Purgatory could of know that,” Benny said, “All you need is just one monster is killed by one of the Winchesters and they would know Dean had a little brother and spread it ‘round like a wildfire.”

It gulped and shakily started to get up. It seemed to think for a moment, went from tugging its shirt to nervously twisting its hands together, before saying, “The impala. She’s… She’s a Ch-Chevy. ‘67.” It said it with insecurity, not at all convincing.

“Any monster killed by them Winchesters could know what car they ride,” Benny said, unimpressed.

Dean was gone, gone topside, and was never coming back. He certainly never would be this shaky. He was nerveless as a kid. And Benny was pretty sure last time he checked, Dean Winchester wasn’t a giant, twirling ball of blue and white light.

The thing let out a sound close to a disappointed whine. It shuffled its feet on the soft leaves on the ground, giving Benny an angry and tearful look. “My name is D-Dean Winchester,” the creature stuttered out, looking like it was trying to be brave. “I’m an Aq… Aqua…Aquarius. I like pie,” its voice broke on ‘pie’ with so much emotion, it nearly made Benny pause. Nearly. “I love the song ‘Ramble On’,” another deep breath, “and you… you rode inside --inside?-- my arm to get out of Purgatory. ” It looked tried to puff up its chest, but its breath caught on a sob instead.

Benny stilled. There was no way this thing could have known about his escape. Or was his first escape from Purgatory a popular gossip subject down here? How else could a monster like Benny have left this hellhole? Maybe another being saw them on their way out.

The vamp hissed through his teeth. “What did you do… eat Dean’s memory or somethin’?”

It stamped its foot on the ground like the petulant child it looked like. “Stop it!” the thing yelled. “Stop it, stop it, stop it, stop it, I am Dean!”

Benny wanted to clap for the creature, for spitting out a phrase that was stutter free, but he felt like that was a little too mean even for him. The thing might know stuff that no other creature should know, but Benny wasn’t going to risk his life.

Hell, but what would happen if Benny was wrong though? What if it was Dean?

Quickly shaking that thought out of his head, Benny raised an eyebrow. “If you’re truly Dean, then you wouldn’t have come in this graveyard all a’bawlin’. The Dean I know --knew-- never cried such a mess.”

“I c-can’t help it,” The being looked furiously up at Benny. “You’re being _mean_ and I’m _scared_!” It glared its green eyes at Benny with a healthy amount of fear and hatred. “I’m lost, and I don’t know even… I don’t even _know_ _you_.” It began shaking with the confession.

Benny knew it, he had _known_ it. His fingers clung tighter to his ax and he planted his feet firmly into the ground. Benny didn’t need to get to get closer to strike the monster, he just needed to be ready in case it attacked. He had known the thing wasn’t Dean. “If you don’t know me, then how’d you know my name and those facts?” Benny lifted the blade a little higher in his grip so he could swing it perfectly.

Hitching his breath, the creature’s eyes tracked his weapon’s movements. “’Cause I know you.”

“You’re kinda contradictin’ yourself there, now.”

It took its gaze of Benny’s ax to shoot him a teary eyed glare. “I know you, but _I_ don’t know you.”

“Why, ‘cause that makes perfect sense,” Benny said sarcastically. Now the creature was just trying to buy time. For what, the vamp didn’t know. There wasn’t anything else near them to help the creature out. It was just Benny and the thing for miles.

It muffled out something that even Benny’s heightened sense of hearing couldn’t make out. “Come again?”

It stared pointedly at the ground and its hands twisted together hard until its little knuckles turned white. “You don’t wanna kill me,” it said slowly. “You loved Dean. You loved me?”

It was like the plot twist in a good horror movie or a good sucker punch to the gut. If Benny’s heart had been actually alive, he might have had a coronary. That would have made two heart attacks today. How the hell did it figure out that? Now, _that_ was knowledge that not even Dean knew.

Benny’s eyes narrowed. So it really wasn’t Dean.

“What are you?” Benny’s grip loosened on his blade, just a fraction, but his voice grew harder. It was getting pretty clear that he may be dealing with some sort of mind reader.

The monster finally looked up at him and squeaked out, “I’m Dean.”

“If you’re Dean, why do you seem unsure?” He countered.

The thing sucked in a sharp breath and started gripping at his hair in frustration. The gesture was so familiar that Benny’s hardened idea of what he was dealing with was thrown for a loop --he had seen a stressed Dean do that quite a few times.

Benny was still thinking about it when the thing talked. “Because I don’t know! I don’t know you! I can’t remember! I… I just get stupid snippets. You’re B-Benny, right? You’re a… a vampire. And you feel like home and the happiness of winning and I don’t know.” It was scared and desperate, but it certainly held its ground.

His head was starting to betray him, started thinking that it was telling the truth. He shoved the idea back, looking towards the gray sky, as if almost to pray for help, when he stopped. Benny turned back towards the thing and jabbed a finger upwards. “You came from up there. What are you? What was happenin’ up there?”

It looked up and pain scrunched up its face. “I… I fell down,” it said as more tears began forming in its eyes. “I… I b-broke?”

“What in the hell does _that_ mean?” Benny was more exasperated than angry now. He just wanted answers and he just wanted to get this over with.

At the thing’s wobbling lip and hesitation, Benny barreled on with his questions. “Whatever those… lights were, I gotta know. Where did you come from? Is that thing gonna come back for you? Is it gonna kill us?” He would not be taken out by two giant lights when he was just only getting comfortable being assigned, again, to his eternal fate in the hellhole.

The thing shook its head and finally gave the vampire information with hitching breaths, “It’s n-not coming back!” Benny nearly jumped as it erupted into cries again.

It could be crocodile tears. Benny rolled his eyes and shouted, “Why? _Why_ aren’t they comin’ back?”

“ _Because the rest of me is all gone_! Twisted and gone! I’m… g-gone!” The thing looked back up at the vamp and had a wild look in its eyes through the tears. The hysteria nearly triggered Benny’s instinct to leap forward and just end its life then before it could attack him. The creature shouted and kept repeating over and over, “It’s gone! I’m gone!”

This was getting them nowhere; the thing was just rambling out nonsense now. Benny, as much as it pained him to do, squatted on the balls of his feet, thinking he might seem less intimidating if they truly saw eye to eye. Maybe the monster wanted that. Maybe it wanted Benny to be easily reachable so it could try to kill him.

“You say you’re Dean,” Benny gruffed out.

The creature only stopped babbling from shock. It slowly lost the wild look in its eyes and Benny watched it come down to reality. It blinked, which let loose more tears, as if it was blinking back whatever daze it had been before exhaling a deep breath. The thing looked at Benny saying, “I am Dean.” It’s voice was all froggy and wet.

“Okay,” Benny nodded and shifted. “Okay. If you truly are Dean Winchester, then tell this old man somethin’ only Dean and I would know, okay?” Something they both knew, not just only Benny.

The thing opened its mouth, “B-But I already-”

“Nah-uh,” Benny lifted his free hand. “Somethin’ truly different. Dean wouldn’t have known that. Gimme somethin’ that Dean would have guarded so deep in his mind, that no memory snatchin’ monster could reach.”

It paused and closed its opened mouth. It sniffed back some of the snot that was probably dripping down its throat. Tilting its head, it looked past Benny for a few seconds as if searching for the answers in its head. The way it zeroed its gaze back on him when it was done was unnerving.

The creature’s eyes narrowed, almost judgmentally. “You and D-Dean, me, watched _Lady in the Tramp_.”

Benny didn’t even have to think about it, the excuse came instantly. “It was just on the crappy motel television, and we were drunk.”

“You were both sober,” it whispered.

“We couldn’t find the damn remote--”

“You were both curious.”

“We did it out of irony--”

“You _both liked it_.”

The next excuse was nearly out of his mouth (both he and Dean had sworn forever silence against the act they had committed) but it caught in his throat. Much like food used to do when he was on Earth again. He stared, and then stared again for good measure.

“…How?” was all that Benny could choke out as he stared at the monster.

The creature knew what no one in the world, Heaven, Hell, and everything in between knew except two beings. And even Dean and Benny themselves had been trying to forget that shit.

“Because… I’m Dean,” It –he?- stuttered.

Benny watched, dumbed, as the little creature - _Dean_?- stared up at him through bleary and red eyes. Benny didn't recall relaxing his fingers, but one second he was holding his blade and the next it fell to the earth with a too soft thud.

Candy apple green eyes, bright from crying, watched him fearfully. It relaxed only slightly when it saw Benny dropping his weapon.

 _Dammit all to hell_. Benny thought. He didn’t have any more questions for it --for Dean. If Benny wasn't going to kill the child now, then he couldn't keep stalling. And apparently his fingers had already made the decision quite clear. Benny wouldn't be slaughtering this thing, this little boy. Maybe he couldn't have even gone through with it in the first place. Looked too much like Dean.

Benny's knees gave out on him and the vampire fell to the damp ground onto his knees, getting a shock outta the boy. He let himself actually hope, for just one second, that maybe perhaps this was Dean. Maybe it was Dean and he had found a way back to Benny and something had just gone wrong. Maybe Dean kept the silent promise neither one of them expected him to keep.

And so Benny stretched out his arms as a painful stinging sensation began in the corner of his eyes. What in the hell was he about to start crying about? When in Purgatory had he ever cried before? He quickly wiped away the stinging from his eyes before opening up his arms again. "Come 'ere.” His damn voice broke at the end.

The little child --Dean-- didn’t need to be told twice. He dashed forward with a happy cry and flung himself into Benny, who grunted at the impact. The kid sure didn't leave Benny time to react before he wrapped his little skinny arms around him and shoved his face into Benny's neck. Dean was like a little sucker. A sobbing sucker. It was a good thing the vampire didn't need to breathe. His mind still reeled from the possibility that this was actually Dean. He had an armful of Dean Winchester and, to be honest with himself, he had no idea what to do.

"Why aren't you hugging back?" Came the muffled voice of Dean Winchester after he hiccupped back a sob.

The comment was apparently all it took to send Benny into action. His arms wrapped around the shaking boy. The body in his arms was heavy and _real_ \--Benny almost expected this all to be some sort of strange Purgatory illusion. Dean was much lighter and fragile feeling than Benny was used to, and he didn’t like it.

Even though the boy didn’t feel exactly alive, the old vampire just wanted to continue to hope, just for a little bit longer. Wanted to believe that this was in fact Dean and that Dean had come back for him.

But a sliver of uneasiness couldn’t be held back forever. Doubt slowly nestled in his mind. After all, the kid didn’t even feel human. He was a solid weight dragging on Benny's neck but Benny felt like if he squeezed harder, his arms would go right through the body. The child didn't smell like a warm, tempting meal, he felt odd. Dean’s whole presence felt like a million of bouncing atoms. Was Benny holding a damn nuclear reactor?

As “Dean” muffled something about seawater, Benny realized his body was still awkward as it clung to the boy. As he was convincing himself that this wasn’t real, his muscles were becoming stiff and his hug was turning as cuddly as a cactus plant. Benny waited, but no teeth emerged from the face shoved under Benny's jaw and tore into his neck. No claws dug into his spinal cord to leave him paralyzed. Not a monster, just one emotionally upset and very tiny Dean Winchester in his arms.

"Dean?" It came out as a whisper. He had to make sure, it would kill his heart if this turned out to be one big dream or trick.

The kid's head nodded and his soft tawny hair brushed against Benny's jaw.

This was real. Benny closed his eyes as the realization finally shooed away that tiny little slice of doubt. He breathed in deep and one of his hands went up to hold the back of Dean's head in a comforting gesture he'd seen fathers do to their own sons. "S'gonna be alright, brother." And Benny gave him a good, proper hug this time.

The kid melted into his hug --Benny always had been told that he was one fine hugger-- and he seemed to be trying to calm himself down. Benny relaxed backwards until his backside was resting on the back of his legs and Dean tried to snuggle in closer as a result.

It all pulled on ,okay practically snapped, Benny's heartstrings because this --this was _Dean_. His Dean. It had to be, even with all the crying. And now Benny was calling himself a dumbass for not seeing it before, even if everything had felt wrong. Who could this small child be other than Dean? No monster could copy that many freckles exactly.

Benny should have realized it sooner and saved Dean from all the trauma of nearly being rejected by him.

Benny had almost killed Dean.

With that horrifying thought, the vampire was the one who clutched closer this time and the little boy sure was not complaining about it. In fact, he seemed to like the attention for his sniffles were being slowly quieted until just loud hiccups remained. Dean's grip did loosen a tiny bit after realizing that, no, Benny wasn't going to let go.

They sat there awhile, with Benny clinging onto the one person that could rock his metaphorical boat of life.

In the quiet air, questions ran rampant in Benny’s mind. How did Dean get back in Purgatory? Why was Dean an eight year old? What were the giant lights that flashed across the sky? What did they have to do with Dean? It was frustrating not knowing the answers.

As Dean sniffled and practically smeared snot on Benny's neck, the vampire was torn between holding onto Dean for a little bit longer (just to be reassured that Dean wasn't going to go disappearing on him) or badgering Dean with those very exact questions. What if the answers were important? What if they had to do something that if they didn't do now, it would bring upon them fatal consequences?

But Dean had just barely stopped sobbing his eyes out and an emotionally upset Winchester was never fun to deal with, especially when there wasn't any type of pie down there to help. So Benny figured that he might as well give them both a few more minutes as Benny tried to wrap his head around the idea that Dean was here crying his arms.

And figure out why Dean didn't feel human.

The man --boy-- felt like a can of pissed-off wasps; he wasn't shaking much anymore, but he sure seemed as if his insides were vibrating. Benny was holding something that he wasn't certain would bleed red blood, or any type of blood. There wasn't a heartbeat, and Dean was only breathing because he was trying to suck back up all that snot. Benny didn’t know whether to feel relieved that once in his entire time of knowing the hunter he didn't even feel the tiniest bit of _urge_ to feed on Dean, or worried.

"Dean?" Benny began softly as he surveyed the woods in front of him, eyes searching for any movement. They had been sitting in one spot for a while now, anything could have followed and caught up by now. But luckily he didn't see any glowing eyes peering back at him from the shadows, nor did he pick up any smell of filth.

A tad bit more comfortable knowing nothing would ambush on them, he continued. There was a lot of questions to ask, but there was one in particular that seemed the most important to him at the moment. "Dean, why did you say you didn't know who I was?" At one point the boy had tried to ramble out the answer, but it hadn’t made any sense.

Maybe the vampire was being a bit too impatient. The man had just been turned into a kid for hell’s sake, he was probably a little slow in remembering everything. A kid's brain couldn't instantly process all the horrors Dean Winchester had faced.

Dean's skinny little arms slowly let go of his death grip and unfolded from his neck. The little boy slid out of Benny's arm like a boiled noodle to plop down on the damp earth in front of him. "'Cause I don't," Dean had a frog in his throat still as he rubbed his eyes wearily. He quickly glanced up at Benny with both a red nose and eyes. He looked terrible. He had tear stains smeared all over half of his face, and Dean's clothing also left something to be desired as he had been improvising it for a towel.

Benny had to stop for a moment and think about what Dean had just said. He forced himself to not automatically think of the worse. "You say you don't r’member me," he began slowly. The vampire adjusted himself so he sat on his ass rather than sitting on his knees. Benny crossed his legs. "But then why did you follow me? I could have killed you," Benny had whispered the last part, and he eyed Dean carefully, waiting for him to look at him and finally understand just what danger he had been.

But there was none of that fear anymore. Dean just sniffled hard and wiped his nose as he tried not to make eye contact. "Because I _do_ remember you, little things," whispered the squeaky voice, more guilty than afraid. "I knew you smell like saltwater, and, and, I knew your beard was as scratchy as sandpaper." The boy finally peeped up at him. "I knew how cold your hug was yet how warm your soul was. It was instinct."

How warm his soul was? It’s not like Dean could tell that, so the boy just must have fumbled up his words again. Benny focused more on the other important declaration. ‘It was instinct’. Something about that really took him wrong. “Are you sayin’,” Benny drawled somewhat wearily, “that you trusted your gut?”

Tater tot sized Dean nodded and worried his lip.

Benny’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “You, Dean Winchester, trusted your gut feelin’ without even thinkin’ ‘bout it. You listened to feelin’ over knowledge?”

He knew the little boy caught on quick, for his eyes flashed with a frustration as soon as Benny was done talking. He knew that Dean Winchester never trusted his own feelings, especially when that feeling was saying that something was alright.

“ _Yes_.” The little boy tried to hiss as he glowered at Benny, but it ended up in a hiccup. “Yeah, I did, ‘cause you feel right.” His lower lip began wobbling and he scrubbed a dirty hand against another falling tear. “Your soul f-felt right…”

There it was, the whole soul thing again. Benny wanted to say that Dean was wrong, that Benny didn’t necessarily have a soul --and if he did, it sure as hell wasn’t any shade of right. But something told him that it would just make him more upset. The sight of the boy all sniffling and near broken sounding tugged at his heart.

Children, Dean Winchester or no, weren’t supposed to sound that forlorn.

The vampire let out a large breath. This was --somehow-- Dean, he had decided that. And maybe the hunter had changed. That’s to be expected, it’s been a whole year and all since Benny had last seen him.

And also now he was a kid.

Benny reached down and patted the little shoulder of Dean Winchester, making the boy look up at him. “S’fine, brother,” He tried to put as much sincerity behind the words and was rewarded when Dean calmed a smidge. “But I need answers that you have to be willin’ to tell. Relax first, though.”

The big old green eyes looked down to the ground and he nodded. The boy had been bouncing back and forth between anger and sadness, all thanks to Benny. He wondered if his old Dean had been like this, emotions going up and down like a rollercoaster, and Benny had just never noticed.

Little Dean puffed out his much tinier cheeks and exhaled slowly. He impatiently tapped his fingers on the ground and seemed for the first time to take notice of their wooded surroundings. There wasn’t any recognition or fear in the green eyes as he studied the towering trees for the second time in his life. There wasn’t any nervous darting to find the nearest thing out to kill them. Just mild curiosity and a healthy weariness.

After a few more seconds Dean seemed to be done calming down, so Benny asked, “Ready for questions?”

“Anything,” Dean bobbed his head up and down, though he didn’t look so sure.

There were so many questions that Benny didn’t know where to start. Benny rubbed the side of his thighs and blew out another breath. It looked like he had started breathing again. That was good. Whenever Benny accidentally stopped before, Dean would look at him funny. Maybe it would put him more at ease now. "Alright," Benny didn't know what he was agreeing to. "How'ya go from a brother to a little brother?"

Benny thought he had been being clever, but Dean's less bushy kid eyebrows drew together in a frown. "Wha...?"

The vampire made a vague gesture at the boy. "You're.... little. A kid. A squirt.

Dean tilted his head --Benny didn't even need to think for a second on who he'd gotten _that_ habit from-- and began wringing his hands. They really needed to wash him up. "I..." Dean paused to scrub at his face before he looked up at him with those red rimmed eyes. "What do you mean?"

Benny's head turned to the right slightly as he squinted. "Dean, you're a.... kid. Why?" There couldn't possibly be a chance that Dean didn't know, right? If his hunter was sharp enough to stop the apocalypse, Benny was two hundred percent sure he had the sense to immediately figure out his body had shrunk.

"I've a-always been a kid," Dean's voiced peeped. He began looking at him all worried again. "Benny... I'm Dean." He said it like it was obvious, like he'd been about eight years old when they first met and from every moment thereafter.

Benny was going to have a migraine. He shifted his legs on the ground and resisted the urge to groan. This wasn't a time to get headaches and whine about complicated kids. Any moment they would have to get ready to scram. "You said you 'membered me," Benny crossed his arms and said in a much quieter tone of voice. "Last time I checked, you weren't little when you told me goodbye. So do you not..?"

"I do know you!" Dean protested. "I'm still me! I've always been me!" Benny was talking to the child’s version of a time bomb; he could explode at any minute.

"Dean I wasn’t sayin’--"

"Please, for once, trust me!" Dean wasn’t talking about Benny now, he had to be talking about someone else. Benny had never let Dean down, and the hunter knew that. That was someone else.

"Dean, calm down," Benny whispered.

"I am calm! I prom--" At the vampire's sharp look, Dean's mouth shut. It took him a few seconds, but Benny could tell the exact moment when the boy realized he'd began freaking out again. Dean looked down, frustrated, it seemed, with everything. "I'm sorry," he muttered. And he was, he did seem sorry even though he didn't do anything other than get a little too passionate.

This was all wrong, it felt all wrong to Benny. This little kid looked like Benny was about to hit him.

"Where did that come from?"

Dean once gave him a glance before studying the forest floor again, idling overturning a rock with a Rower Ranger tennis shoe. And God help them, it had _reflectors_ on it. _What had the hunter been wearing when he was sent back here_? "I am full of... of re-remem- _memories_ , I was thinking of something else for a little. M’sorry."

The look Benny gave Dean was akin to the one a mother would give her son of whom she expected of sneaking a piece of cake. He even felt an urge to put his hands on his hips. Might have actually, if he wasn’t sitting down. "Would do you mean," Benny said carefully, "by 'full of memories'?"

Dean blinked, and as the stared up at him all confused, it was then Benny realized that everything was silent. He damn near bristled. The vampire found silence disturbing down in Purgatory. Up in Earth it was welcomed, a luxury even. On Earth it was always noisy, damn near over powering. There were always people breathing, cars running, dogs barking, and tempting heartbeats. Benny had looked for it for sweet silent relief, but down here it was a symbol of death.

Silence meant that something was trying to be quiet and still. Benny very much preferred the constant noise of some clumsy creature dragging itself through the foliage.

And it was quiet now, had been probably for a while now ever since he stumbled upon Dean. He looked down on the hunter and saw that the man-turned-boy was staring back up at him with still confused big ol’ green eyes. Could he even still hunt and kill? Benny put that on his growing list of questions. If he didn’t, or couldn’t manage too because of his size, then Dean was the equivalent to a monster toothpick. Easy prey.

Benny waved his right hand slightly to the right. “Don’t matter right now, I guess.” Dean had just been crammed into a seven year old’s body and was a little confused. All the horrors he had seen couldn’t be expected to immediately fit. Benny nodded and wetted his always dry lips and repeated, “It don’t matter. Hey, Dean?” he didn’t wait for an answer, just reached forward and gingerly took a hold of the sleeve of the green shirt Dean was wearing.

He looked wearily around them. He could ask his questions later when there wasn’t a threat of falling victim to a hungry passerby. The woods seemed to draw closer and get darker, so Benny got up. “We should get going.”

Dean immediately scrambled up and all it took was a little tug before Dean willingly went with him. The boy wiggled his arm out of the vampire’s gentle grasp and starting clutching at Benny’s shirt. Like how any kid would with their family in an amusement to not get lost. “Why?” His voice was a little higher than it had been, and Benny sure as hell hoped that wasn’t a wobble on the boy’s lips. “Are we in danger?”

 _This is Purgatory, Dean, when were they_ not _in danger_? He kept the comment to himself though as he began into a slow walk in a direction he hoped sound would be. He glanced at the boy again. Out of anyone, Dean would know that the best, being human and hunted down for the promise of fresh meat. Benny wasn’t liking this whole patches of memories missing thing all too well.

Dean, after stumbling at first, quickly caught on and walked slightly faster to keep up with Benny. It only took two smacks of a branch to get Dean to let go of Benny’s shirt to instead swipe in front of him for branches. “Where’re we going?” It was an innocent question, yet one that had been eating at Benny for a very long time.

In the end though, it wasn’t a hard question to answer. “Gonna find a safe place, first.” A safe place? He wanted to chuckle at the notion. Benny was too busy nervously watching the dark patches in their paths to smile reassuringly. “Then we're gonna get you home. Again."

 

 

The monsters of Purgatory were being extra nice to them today, and Benny didn’t like it. So far they have traveled for a good hour and they hadn't run into anybody yet. No traps, no hungry beings, no disasters, no nothing. It was off putting, strange. Purgatory’s inhabitants almost seemed tamed. That, or scared.

Was it because of Dean? Last time the hunter was a hotspot for trouble, a piece of meat everyone wanted a bite of. But now a different wave wafted off him, and he certainly didn't feel all that human. He had no heartbeat, but felt like a barrel of lightning bolts all jumbling around. Benny was sure going to ask him about that later.

They paused for a second by an achingly familiar river that's rippling was a dull sound in the background. As the vampire watched the slow moving water, he idly wondered if there were some monstrous fish that called the river home. Like blue gills, but when touched would transform into something from the dinosaur era and consume his organs. But then he remembered that there were leviathans still down here in Purgatory, and he began walking faster.

But who was Benny kidding, everything looked the same here. He felt like Purgatory was always trying to pull some mind prank on its inhabitants, to drive them deeper into insanity and desperation to live. Seeing the same trees, the same rivers, the same cliffs, and the same caves always brought down a sense of lost and hopelessness, even if you weren't trying to get somewhere.

"Remember?" Benny asked a constantly fidgeting Dean. The boy was constantly either wringing his hands, pulling at his shirt, or shoving his small hands into his small pockets. It was kind of endearing and fascinating to watch a Dean who was so obvious in his nervousness and extra, kid energy.

Dean shook his head and then looked around before settling his gaze on the river. "No," he drawled out as he pulled of the collar of his shirt. He looked up, innocently. "Am I supposed to?"

Benny gave Dean a good stare before remembering he had to look where he was going down here if he didn't want to trip on one of the graveyard's complementary, breaching roots. "How's Castiel doing?" The vampire said slowly as he stepped over a particularly large log of a fallen tree. He phrased it casually, though he was beyond interested in the answer.

If Dean was here, alone, then that meant the angel and Sam were sure to follow. Benny expected them both to pop out behind a scraggly tree, give Benny one of their 'I like you, but I wish I didn’t' looks, and give him a reasonable explanation about why Dean had been midget-tized. Knowing the stubborn dio, they'd probably even find a way to get new child sized clothing and blankets for Dean down here. The kid sure as hell needed the new clothes. The collar and sleeves of Dean's shirt was covered in his own snot and tears. Just looking at his made his own sleeves feel itchy.

Dean made a sound of compliant behind him, and Benny had to stop, turn around, and lift Dean across the tree. Benny got some sense of whiplash when he picked up the scrawny boy because he was startled by the fact that the thirty-five year old man weighed under one hundred pounds now. He was as light as a feather.

The feather bit his lip when Benny set him back down and fixed his shirt, which had ridden upon him. "Castiel?" It was a squeak, which was mighty impressive considering his voice already sounded so high pitched. "Castiel is," there was a confused pause, "he's trying to kill me?"

 _Hold on_.

"Whoa! Okay, _attends une seconde_ , pardon?" Benny asked incredulously, and it was a good thing he was already looking at Dean, or he would have whipped around so fast he'd might have snapped his own damn neck.

He had not been expecting _that_. He must have heard it wrong. "Kill you? Now, certainly not." That seemed so characteristically _not_ like Hot Wings. Benny had just finished thinking about the angel coming running into Purgatory with his brother and practically swaddling up the boy in five blankets.

Dean gnawed on his lip as--

Benny's voice died in his throat.

Lights were plainly flashing behind his eyes. Beams of white flickered in with the green. Dean looked like he was watching something only he could see, and that was just _wrong_. It was inhuman. The lights stopped and the only good explanation Benny could come up with was that he had imagined it.

Dean looked like he hadn't at all noticed the light shining out of his eyeballs. He looked scared, terrified, as his eyes widened and he opened his mouth into a little 'o' before saying, "He's g-gonna kill me, Benny, he's being controlled," his voice cracked on the last word, and the boy flinched like Benny had made a move to hit him.

"What do ya mean--"

Fear transformed into panic as Dean's gaze shot nervously side to side. He seemed ready to bolt. "Oh, Benny, _they're taking his grace_ , Benny!"

"Quiet down, brother, please just--" He tried to shush him as he looked around nervously himself. He was being too loud, anything with decent ears could hear them and lock down on their position. The dark shadows between the trees seemed to draw closer to them, listening.

Little hands clutched at his torn and frayed coat as little eyes stared up at him, filling with fears once again. Dean tugged. "He's human, Benny, human! He's lost and, and, then he, he, died!"

Benny was standing there, gaping like a fish out of water, as two tears began to fall down the hunter's eyes. What was happening?

Castiel... dead? Something was horribly wrong here. Human emotions didn't come and go that fast, and lights weren't supposed to flash behind any person's eyes except perhaps angels. And he knew that the being in front of him wasn’t an angel. "Dean," he said sternly. He stopped down and gently put his hands on the boy's shoulders, "Listen to me."

Dean just grabbed more of his coat and sniffled. Was he patting Benny's arm? "It's okay, it's okay, Zeke brought him back." Was he trying to console _Benny himself_? And who in the world's wretched name was _Zeke_? "And... and Cas, he got some grace back. He's an angel again. But..."

 _Benny had no idea what was happening._ It was like he was watching a climatic, emotional scene of a movie in fast forward. He was left struggling to grasp the concept of what was going on, and he just couldn’t keep up.

The boy went back to tearing up again. "But it isn't his grace, he's dying again, and--"

"Hey, okay, okay," Benny squeezed the boy's shoulders to get his attention and almost thanked the heavens when Dean's eyes cleared up and actually saw him. The vampire shook off Dean's hold and carefully wiped away the tears on his face with his coarse coat. Benny grimaced as he tried not to think about all the snot he might be getting on it. "It's all fine, right? Castiel will figure it all out with that smarty pants brother of yours, huh?"

Dean took a deep, calming breath and needed a minute off twisting his shirt sleeves before he felt better to talk. "I don't know," Dean whispered cautiously, and he seemed close to panicking again. The boy hiccuped.

So now not only did Benny have questions about Dean, but know he had so many questions about what in the good name of God was going upstairs. It sounded all made up by an overactive imagination, it just didn't sound possible. Brain control? Angel's becoming human? That sort of stuff just didn't happen. Though who is he to talk. He's a beings who's died three times.

His head was scrambled from just thinking about this, so Dean's must be exploding. He needed Dean’s attention off this subject, and quick. "Okay, well, why don't we play a game then, yeah? Get our minds off things that ain't important right now," Benny lied through the skins of his teeth. Hot Wings dying was sure as hell important right now, but Dean didn't need to be thinking about it.

The little hunter thought about his idea for a tense second, as if deciding if he should cry or play, before nodding. "Oh-Okay."

"Great, now let's get a'goin'," Benny felt like he had read somewhere in some damn children’s magazine that games were a great distraction for emotionally upset kids. And if you didn't make it seem like the problem was actually that big, then they'd feel more comfortable.

Much to his relax he was able to coax Dean back into walking forwards again with a few positive words and lie-filled promises that everything would work out. The boy followed him with childlike trust, not even thinking about it, just going.

“What kind of game are we playing?” Dean inquired tentatively, still sounding a bit spooked.

“Why don’t you decide?” Benny offered. That’ll give him something to think about other than his friend… _dying_ for what seemed like the hundredth time.

Dean nodded and stared seriously at the ground in utmost concentration. Like he was trying really hard to think of a good game, like this was some great honor. It was completely toddler-like.

Benny had a timid thought that what if he did manage to get Dean back topside, and he stayed as a kid? What if Team Free Smartasses couldn't figure out how to resize Dean? Would Benny become an uncle to Dean (if he rode the way back up with Dean)? Surely Sam and Cas would need him around for babysitting jobs. Plus Benny wasn’t so sure he could just leave a tiny Dean Winchester, knowing he could be so much more protected if the vampire was there with him. He began picturing all the parenting magazines he'd have to read.

As horrible images of DIY crafts and children with dead stares laughed merrily on magazine covers, Dean piped up, "I figured it out. I wanna play "A Poor Man's Luck"." He was gazing at a shiny black river rock on the ground.

Benny frowned while he racked his brain for a game called ‘A Poor Man’s Luck’, and even with his impressive lifespan of memories, he couldn't for the life of him recall any game. " 'A Poor Man's Luck'?" He repeated dumbly, hoping saying it out loud it would trigger some memory. Nope, nothing. Must be a sort of modern game. "Now, how do you play that, brother?"

Dean looked absolutely ecstatic about knowing something Benny didn't. His face lit up as if a few minutes ago he hadn't been having a child panic attack. When Dean grinned wide, it struck Benny that the boy's bottom left canine tooth was missing --and wasn’t that damn well amusing. The midget hunter stopped in his tracks and turned around. Dean squatted down to pick something up.

He came back running to Benny with a smile and the smooth black rock in his hands. He couldn’t even get his fingers all the way around it. "My Dad taught me this game," Dean said it proudly and Benny's eyebrow raised. "When Sammy was real little. Like baby little, so he couldn't play."

"What does that have to do with the rock?"

"Well, what you do," Dean gave him look as if to say 'be patient', "is say something you really, really, _really_ want. Like this," Little hands held up the rock as if it was on an invisible pedal stool. "I _really_ want this rock. It has no bumps and it's black like Benny's coat."

The old vamp couldn't help but smile at Dean's simile. It was a small smile, but it was the first one he'd had in a very long time. It was almost too cute for him to handle. And to think that if Benny hadn't been killed by his family, then he could have been around to see Dean this small. "Gotcha," Benny nodded along. "What now?"

"Now, you say two things about why having this rock would be really, really bad."

What was wrong with the rock? "Dean--"

Dean gave him no time to talk, "Well if I kept this rock, I would have no use for it." The boy narrowed his eyes at the slab of minerals. "It'd just get in the way. And second, Benny would think it’s stupid and silly to keep rocks." Dean paused for second, as if digesting what he had just said, and sighed. Then he looked back up at him and said, "I don't think I want this rock anymore."

Did Dean just try to sell Benny that making reasons for not wanting things was a little game? What started out as shock slowly turned into something skin to anger. "An' your daddy taught you that?" Benny had to be sure he didn't say it angrily, even if at this minute he wished he could go back in time and sock John Winchester in the stomach. He taught a little boy how to make excuses about not getting things he wanted. And he made it into a ‘ _game_

"That's just mighty --Dean Winchester, what are you doing, here _I'll_ take that rock, I find it just fine." Benny swiped the black stone out of the kid's hands that had been in the process of dropping it on the muddy ground.

Dean, who had been staring at the rock as if it were an Olympics’ gold metal just a few seconds ago, watched with furrowed brows as Benny shoved it into his own coat pocket. "But the rock is silly now, why did you take it?"

"'Cause I wanted it," was his simple reply. It was amazing how much his anger for John Winchester could grow in such a short amount of time. Bigger Dean had told him stories before, and boy was this just adding onto the bad parent list. "Do you think this game is a good game, Dean?"

"Yes," he didn't even hesitate. Those green eyes were watching something else when he spoke, "I remember when Dad first taught me it too! Sammy was just a baby, oh wait, I already said that, you know that. Okay, well, so Sammy was being carried in Dad's arms, and I saw a toy cowboy and his horse in a window, and I really wanted the toy, like really badly."

"So your dad made up this game?"

Dean nodded his head. "He said that we didn't have enough money or space for the toy, but I kept asking and asking until Dad told me to say two things about why I shouldn't get it." Eyes still distant and almost cloudy, Dean held up two grimy fingers and counted them off as he said, "One, I would probably play with it for a couple of weeks, and then get bored. Two, the toy could be broken into tiny pieces, and Sammy could eat one and choke on it. After that, I didn't want the toy anymore."

The other worldly look in the kid's eyes fade away, but Benny didn’t feel any relief. All of this, all of this flashing white lights in Dean’s eyes, emotional swings, and distant looks were really starting to worry the vampire. "You didn't get the toy, then?"

"No, but it was okay," Little Dean added the last part quickly, and he even held out his palms towards Benny as if to stop any bad thoughts. "We really didn't have enough money to spend it on silly things. It's all right, Dad was being smart. And so yep!" He brightened up considerably and beamed. "That's the game!"

Benny wanted to tell Dean that it was wrong, that the game was wrong, but he just knew it would make him upset. And begrudgingly somewhere in Benny's mind, he knew that John Winchester had been smart. At least for a little bit. The man probably didn’t think this game would sear itself into Dean’s very soul. From what little information Dean --Benny's much taller Dean-- had told him, the family had no extra money to spend growing up. Getting a toy for a little boy who'd grow bored of it was a huge waste of money. So John made a game out of giving his child excuses to not get it. Doesn't change the fact that he was an ass though.

"Now Benny has to play it." It was an innocent comment, not a demand.

It was incredible how fast excuses came flying out of his tongue, "Aw no, brother, I don't wanna--" Dean’s lower lip stuck out and Benny had to look away so he didn't give in. "That game ain't for--"

"But _Benny_ ," Dean drawled out his name in an increasingly whining tone, "You gotta! I did, so now you do too!" And so child logic was poured onto Benny. The boy walked with a little more stomp in his step.

Benny wasn't quite sure if he wanted to play a game and be put down in spirit more than he already was. He snuck a glance at Dean, and was dismayed to see the full puppy dog eyes in effect.

The hunter had gone on and on about his brother's puppy dog eyes once after they finished killing a group of irritating bangees. Dean had been feeling a bit more nostalgic and had regaled all sorts of examples. But Sam's look must surely be nothing compared to those big ol' watery green eyes. Maybe Sam learned it from Dean.

"If I did it, Benny has to do it," Somehow within a few hours of being eight years old, Dean had re-learned the art of professional child pouting. This man was surely something.

"Aw, brother, I really don't think I should play--"

The look Dean gave him would be best described as 'no'.

Benny could feel his will slowly caving in. The vamp stuck his one free hand in his coat pocket as he sighed. He really needed somewhere to hold his impromptu weapon, carrying it around everywhere was mighty tiresome. He couldn't stick it through his pocket less he wanted a giant hole in it.

He relented. "I'll play your little game," as Dean's face began to grin, Benny added, "But only once, ya hear? We gotta pay attention to our surroundin's more and this game is distractin' you," It was a big lie, considering he came up with this whole game idea in the first place _to_ distract Dean. But Benny also didn't want to spend the next couple of hours regretting every little thing.

"Deal," Dean said it so seriously, and the little midget sized hunter looked expectantly at him. "What's you want?”

Benny looked around them, at the spindly trees. He barely even had to think about it, but he wanted to make Dean wait. He made sure to stare for a good bit at the sky before he decided it still looked the same grey as ever and he turned his attentions to the river that they were following. It was still a tiny, rumbling stream that gave off such a deceitful, calm presence with its muffled sounds. Then he made sure to listen to their surrounding area, but could only hear the sound of some ugly son of a bitch moving a ways off.

"Benny," Dean whined as he bumped into him. If he had been his normal side, he might have shoved Benny into a tree. "Come on," the boy drawled out, impatient as ever. It was so entirely Dean-like that Benny was almost comforted by it.

He felt the corner of his lip quirk up as he, finally giving the boy what he wanted, professed, "You know what I really want? I really want to eat food again, that's what I want." That small want was always somewhere in the back of his mind; for food, real food, actual human food. Of course he would never have admitted this to his much taller Dean. Skyscraper Dean had had his own set of problems and didn't needed to be bothered with Benny's wishful thinking, especially when they couldn't do anything about it.

Still don't mean that it didn't happen, though.

It was always an interesting impulse too. He’d be making up some food in the tiny bar, or be watching Dean shovel food down his throat like a starved man, and Benny would look at the nice, normal food and think, ‘I wonder if it still tastes like it used to’. So he’d watch, interested, as the urge got stronger and stronger to just try one bite because, oh, one small nibble wouldn’t hurt his gut. But then as soon as Benny made a move to pick any food up, or even think about actually eating and chewing and the whole nine yards, an almost nauseous feeling would appear and make his stomach whirl.

Benny didn’t like it, it was confusing as hell.

For some reason Dean looked surprise, like he'd forgotten that maybe a vampire might have missed good old solid food just a little bit. The only taste Benny had on his tongue now was the one of blood, and blood doesn't exactly come in a wide arrange of flavors.

"Now I have'ta say two reasons that'd be bad?" Benny questioned. At Dean's nod, he took a deep breath. "Well, if I do, the food wouldn't quite sit well in the digestive track. And the food would probably not taste like food anymore, poison maybe--"

"That doesn't count," Dean interrupted him. When Benny glanced down, shocked at his interruption, all he saw were big green eyes staring up at him.

Benny never even suspected Dean Winchester could be this damn... _adorable_ when he was little. Benny always envisioned a mini Dean as how he always described himself in stories. As horrible as it was, he had always imagined this stone faced boy with a shotgun pointed at whatever threatened his family. A dirty, hard set face that would make any rational thinking grown man run.

Definitely not this tearful, guiltless looking boy.

“What doesn’t count?” Eating food again had been something he wanted, wasn’t it?

“Yeah, but you can’t eat food no matter what,” Dean kicked a few fallen, mushy leaves bashfully when Benny muttered something along the lines of, 'thanks for pointing it out, brother'. “It has to be something that you can have no matter what. I could have gotten that cowboy toy.”

“Aw, he-heck, fine,” Benny was quick to censor his language, which took a great deal of strength. He has never censored his words in front of Dean before.

What else could he want other than taste food again? Benny has been trying to teach himself to be happy with what he’s got and not to want. He’s got everything he needs; a blade, his wits, and now Dean. Getting back up on earth, perhaps? Even then he wasn’t so sure. Last time hadn’t exactly gone over that well. “I sorta want not to have my life threatened everyday by some supernatural being hunting me down. I want that really badly.”

Benny pretended to think and paused for second, then his lip quirked. “Why, for some darn reason I cannot find a reason not to want that.”

Dean seemed close to rolling his eyes, he even looked up earth-ward. “Benny,” he drew out his name again. He boy was almost a pinky finger tip away from actually sulking. A little pouting dimple made a dent in his round cheek as he looked forward and not at his vampire companion. “You’re not good at this game.” The older Dean would have lightly snapped Benny’s suspenders by now in annoyance.

A laugh began bubbling up in his chest because damn did he miss messing with the hunter, but before he could, he went still.

Dean noticed pretty quickly that his companion had ceased moving in all, and tugged at his sleeve. "Benny--"

" _Shh_ ," He couldn't hear correctly with Dean talking. He reached out his arm and lightly pushed the boy, who had instantly shut his trap, behind him, and Benny stopped breathing.

Benny thought he'd heard something in front of them, behind feet of shadowy trees. The giant ferns that should have been a brilliant, deep, lush green, but were instead dulled and mixed with grey. It reached up from the ground in packs and obstructed his view. His eyes darted across in front of them, praying for a ray of the sun that wasn't in the sky to shine down and hit the path ahead of it so he could see any approaching shapes. His grip on his blade tightened.

Then he heard it again. A few snaps and perhaps a harsh outtake of breath.

He knew he was pushing Dean behind him even more, and he was suddenly angry that Dean wasn't _Dean_. An eight year old couldn't wield a blade, even if Benny had one to spare. They couldn't fight like they used to. No back to back. No gestures or the quirk of their lips as they took on groups of nasties. It was just all on Benny to protect himself and Dean, and that made him mourn for what was. Eight year olds couldn't do any damage, Dean Winchester or not.

As the breathing -- _panting_ it had to be now-- came towards them at an alarmingly increasing pace, Benny took a stance. He just hoped it wasn't a pack, though from the sounds it didn't seem like it. There was just one thing breathing and clumsily stepping on twigs. Benny took a deep breath and smelled something that very similar to a petting zoo he had once been taken to.

It was nearly upon them, and Benny had one terrifying thought about what if he couldn't win this fight. What would the creature do if it got his grubby paws on Dean? What would Dean do the second it appeared? Run? Climb one of the skinny trees? The sound of imagery wind seemed almost deafening in Benny's ears as his entire body seemed to tighten. The creature sure didn’t let Benny wait too long, for within four seconds the shine of its eyes could be seen, and it came toppling out of the sticky ferns with a growl.

It didn't seem like it had even been trying to lounge at them. It just sprung out of the plants and stumbled right on the ground like it was unbalanced. But boy, Benny saw that it was _ugly_ as hell when it turned it's beady red eyes on them.

The vampire almost physically recoiled, and gave kudos to Dean for not reacting at all. The son of a bitch looked like a person picked a few traits of animal and blended it together like an animal Frankenstein's monster. It looked like a mix of a dog and hyena, and the mutation did not go very well.

The creature hyena's like head opened its jaws to reveal skinny, gleaming teeth. Much like Benny's own, but instead there were much fewer and seemed to be haphazardly placed. If Dean's sense of inappropriate, yet appreciative, humor was with him, he would have said something along the lines that the teeth belonged to a teenage vampire who desperately needed braces.

The mouth of the creature widened as shiny saliva dripped down to the forest floor. But the mouth didn't stop. It kept getting widening, and widening, until it broke all animal jawbone law. It snarled as it lowered its thick neck downwards so Benny got a good view of its chewed off ears and its spinal cord peeking out of its back. Benny had a strong urge to snarl back.

"Benny, what is it?" Whispered a tiny voice from behind him. Dean had completely disappeared behind his legs and decided to grab at the back of his coat. If Benny needed to move quickly, that might be a problem.

Luckily the thing seemed much more interesting to have an alpha dog stare down than attacking. That was, it seemed, until Dean spoke. Its jaw stopped trying to imitate a snake's and cocked its head. Something white and yellow poured out all where it's ears used to be.

Benny's food less stomach squirmed in anxiety.

" _Ben-ny_ ," said Dean’s voice, but as the old vamp had feared, it really wasn't Dean at all.

Hands gripped his coat closer and he heard a shaky intake of breath behind him. Dean was going to freak. _Don't let Dean freak out_.

The creature tried again, and was a little bit better. " _Benny wha-wha-what - is, is, is_ ," its voice sounded like Dean's but on a broken recorder as it tried to figure out the sound.

Benny's first description of its red glowing eyes as 'beady' wasn't that far off. Now that Benny has gotten a much better visual of the thing, he could now clearly see that the eyes were in fact, red gleaming jewels.

" _Benny, what is, is, it_."

Dean whined behind him. Maybe this new Dean would run. They couldn’t go anywhere now without killing the thing. It knew Dean’s voice, and it could spread it around until there were hundreds of mimicking ugly sons of a bitches were running around talking like Dean. Benny couldn’t let that happen.

Tightening his grip on his blade, Benny tried to plan out how he was supposed to kill this thing. If he moved from where he was, he would leave Dean wide open for attack. But he couldn't just stand around and wait for the crocotta to make a move towards them, towards _Dean_. Maybe he should have figured out how to craft a long range weapon, like a bow. The vamps tried to secretly dig through his pocket with his free hand, trying to find anything useful.

The only thing in his pocket was smooth and round, and Benny nearly groaned at loud when he remembered it was Dean's rock. Perhaps if it had been jagged it might have helped, but no, it was just a little river stone.

“It’s a crocotta, Dean,” Benny whispered like maybe if he kept quiet enough, the purgatory spawn wouldn’t hear it. “They mimic the voice of people an' later use it to drawl them deep into the woods so it can devour their soul. You ever hunt one with that brother of yours or pap?”

Luckily the thing didn’t seem to pay much attention to Benny’s speech or get any closer, and instead opted for opening and closing its mouth almost experimentally. So if it wasn’t eager to attack, was it eager to learn?

“I, I don’t,” Dean murmured behind him into his pea coat, where he couldn’t see the thing cock its head and listen. “Maybe we --no, yeah I did! Sam and I killed one, but it didn’t look like that.”

“That’s probably ‘cause it had to take a human form topside, but this is the real monster underneath the skin,” Benny wanted to look behind him to smile reassuringly at Dean, but he didn’t want to risk the crocotta seeing it as an opening. “Do you ‘member how to kill it?”

“N-No.”

The creature’s jaws widened slightly. “ _Benny, please stop_.”

The vampire ground his human teeth together as he fought his second pair from breaking through. It was almost the time to satisfy the itch and let them slide into place, but right now he needed to talk to Dean nice and clearly.

Dean was getting more terrified. If the boy made a ran for it, he could be easily slaughtered. Benny would have bet all his life savings from when he was alive that crocottas were much faster than an eight year old Dean Winchester. Benny tried to keep his voice low and calming, even though he knew nothing could be comforting when there was a monster very lots of pointy teeth in front of you.

"Break their spinal cord or necks," the vampire whispered. He tried to say it haughtily, to give the impression that Benny could easily do just that. Like it'd be as easily as snapping a dead tree's branch, and that a crocotta's neck wasn't as thick as his waist. Vampire strength could only get you so far.

Benny could feel the grip on his coat lessen, and the small amount of hope he held that maybe, just maybe, they'd make it out alive, was squashed when Dean decided to overcome his fear and poked out his head to get a weary look at the creature. Benny hadn’t taken into consideration that his assurance might have been too good.

The crocotta instantly stopped imitating Dean's voice, and much to Benny's horror, locked its red jeweled eyes onto the boy. Its whole entire body seemed to begin vibrating, and Dean suddenly froze up and refused to get back behind Benny, _damnit_.

And then Dean screamed.

The creature moved into action, gathering itself on its haunches, and _lunged_.

Reacting on pure instinct and fear, Benny pushed the boy back a few feet and got into the crocotta's path. The big ball of fur and puss rammed into the vampire without any mercy. Benny couldn't even get out a sound when the bulldozer of a dog hit him.

He barely had time to figure what the hell just happened when he suddenly had a face full of snapping, crooked teeth. His arm had shot up to dig itself in the creature’s throat, and Benny watched as it sunk into the dirty, matted fur. _Benny nearly died right then and there_. The crocotta's breath was puffing into his nose as the dog tried to maul of his face.

 _It smelled like a week month old chicken carcass_.

There was a frightened call of Benny's name from behind him. Both the crocotta and Benny turned to look. Dean was standing by himself seven feet away, screaming his name; _open to attack._

The dog mutant lost interest in Benny and went for Dean like it had originally meant to. Benny's free hand jerked out and tried to grab the back of the thing's neck, but where he had tried to grab, there wasn't any skin. His hand sunk past the greasy hairs and straight into something hard. It took a millisecond for the vampire to realize that _that_ was its spinal cord, but then it was too late and he couldn't get ahold of it.

The creature wretched itself from his weak grasp and jumped straight towards Dean. Benny couldn't move, only watch as the boy let out a truly, horrible screech as he held up his tiny arms to his face while the beast descended. He couldn't do anything. The thing would rip the boy to shreds. He'd never make it to him in time. _Why could he_ \--

Something strange happened.

Dean lit up. No, he _exploded_ like a homemade firework.

Wind and the same light that had streaked across the sky flew from Dean now. Light, brilliant white and blue light, shot out of an eight year old's arms, _out of Dean_. A forceful, angry gust was what made Benny cover his forehead, trying to protect his eyes without closing them, with his arm as wind and the sound of flapping clothes rush in his ears.

With shock Benny watched the blue and white impaled the crocotta, watched it fling the creature backwards as if the light was a solid beam. The body flew back, past Benny, and it thumped to the ground with a wet slap.

The vampire’s eyes were glued to the confusing body, observe the hole in its chest and throat spurt out rich colored blood onto the already damp ground.

Blood.

Benny’s world suddenly got a lot smaller as he was momentarily over consumed with the thought of hunger. He was already beginning to step closer when the _smell_ , hit his nostrils again. The smell of decay and a possum's mouth overflowed his senses, and his hunger snapped back in check along with his second pair of teeth. His stomach didn’t even rumble in protest at not getting its fill, knowing the horrid stench meant that meal wouldn’t even go half way down his throat before it shot right back out.

After vampiric instincts faded, reality came back. Benny slowly turned towards Dean again, whose chest was heaving and his eyes--

His eyes were still glowing. Benny stood stiff still as the light fade slowly and the green returned. Dean's eyes only held terror now instead of a light. The boy had saved himself from death --Benny suddenly realized that he wasn’t standing still, he himself was shaking -- but _how did the boy do it_?

The vampire took one look at Dean's round, too innocent face. He sucked in a breath through his teeth and his hands clenched into fists. Dean was alright, safe, but-- “What the flippin’ hell was that, Dean?!” A very, very pissed Benny, paying no attention to what danger it could get them in, yelled at a cowering little boy.

Dean’s face morphed into shock and the boy gawked at him. “I, I don’t--”

“Of course ya know!” Benny cut him off. “Your eyes --they… Why did your eyes glow like a damn angel’s?” he sputtered. “Why did you become so… so _scared_ the second you got a good look at it? You’ve seen these monsters hundreds of times! You've could of gotten yourself killed! Why are you _hiding_ stuff from me?”

The boy backed away, his eyes flashing back and forth between the vampire’s stern face and his axe. Dean was reacting as if Benny was a threat, like he wasn’t just a very mad friend who was protective over this child’s general wellbeing. Like he was going to hurt him.

It hurt he vamp, made his jaw clench, but he held firm.

Dean’s little throat gulped. “I… I--”

Benny was really, really tired, and he really wanted answered. He flung his free hand towards the sky in a gesture. “You said that was you in the sky, right? That you fell down?”

A nod and a sound that might have been a ‘yes’ was squeaked from Dean. The little hunter made sure there was plenty of feet separating them.

“So you were that bright blue cloud?” Benny pushed. He wanted to know, needed to figure this out.

Green eyes blinked rapidly, like Dean was barely holding back the tears, and he choked out, “Yes.”

“So what was that black cloud, huh? What was it?”

This time the mumble was so quiet that even Benny couldn’t hear it. The vamp waited a few seconds for Dean to repeat it, but instead the boy had taken quite an interest in the ground again.

“Pardon, brother?”

“M-Me.”

At least Benny could hear it this time. The only problem was that he couldn’t understand a lick of it. “Now, hold on, tator tot, you’re both the white _an’_ black haze? You can’t be two things at once now… Can ya?”

All Benny got was a tear running down Dean’s cheek again and a somber nod. If not for the tear, Dean would have looked his age --his real age.

Benny’s stare narrowed as he thought the possibility that Dean had hit his head on the fall down. Speaking of which, how did he survive the fall? The black smoke couldn’t have been --wasn’t-- Dean Winchester. He must have hit is head hard, or maybe his brains had been rattled too much by the crocotta attack. “But the black one was eating on the white light, wasn’t it? So you were fightin'… with yourself.” It didn’t make any sense.

“Yeah,” was the sniffled reply. Dean wasn’t making any sense.

This whole talk Benny had been unconsciously leaning forward. He ran a large, calloused hand through what little hair he had. Then he rubbed at his not-exactly-a-beard for extra good measure. Benny needed to be fully informed of what was going on if he was going to keep them both alive and, for Dean, breathing. “So if you were both things, why were ya attackin’ yourself?”

Dean’s right arm made a circle around his face to wipe of the tears and what would sure be snot sooner or later. It hurt to look at the sad little display, seeing a little boy crying. Especially when he knew the little boy was Dean Winchester. Benny just knew the scene was going to haunt him for weeks. Making Dean Winchester cry was definitely a sandpaper rub against the good ol’ conscious.

“Be-Because I,” Dean quieted and tried very hard to pull together his thoughts. It didn’t go very well for the boy jumbled out, “’Cause after I… er, yea, I wanted… After I--”

Benny couldn’t tell if he was nervous or he was trying to remember something. The old vamp was waiting for a solid explanation --but boy, he sure as hell didn’t get one.

“After I died.”

Benny felt like a lightning bolt had descended from the sky and struck him dumb. “That’s not possible--" he noticed he's been saying that a lot today, "--you can’t be dead. You’re right here in front of me.” It was worse than he thought. The kid didn’t just have hit his head when falling to the ground as a giant comet; his brains must have popped out.

His Dean would say in a moment like this, ‘Denial is not just a river in Egypt’.

"No, no, no, Benny I _died_ ," The kid's voice was slowly turning into a wail, and the loud noise was making Benny nervous. If one crocotta was around, plenty of others preying on it could be too. Why, this whole day they have been stomping through the woods with Dean crying and Benny yelling, they were more easily track able than a person walking through snow. Dean sniffled big and loud. “I d-died and--”

“Calm down,” Benny was a little rusty taking care of children. “Slow down, brother.” Benny reached out to pat Dean’s shoulder, because that’s what they did when Dean was a much bigger, but changed directions half way down to his head. Of course Dean ducked at the moment to splutter out some warbled ‘sorry’s, and Benny was left looking like a doofus who didn’t know what to do with his hands.

The vamp took a glance around, but could only see trees, rocks, and more trees instead of any glowing eyes watching from the shades. He took a deep breath too to be safe, and couldn’t smell a thing near. But then again, his nose was pretty clogged with the stench of the already decayed crocotta.

So he took a risk and he squat down, knees cracking loudly and vulnerable to attack from behind. “Hey, now, let’s wipe those tears off ya, yeah?” Benny said as he tried to get Dean to look at him. This position was familiar.

Dean finally looked at him with a wobbling lower lip, and Benny was suddenly struck with a realization. Here he was in Purgatory, with a de-aged Dean Winchester who was wobbling his lip and was close to another melt down of tears. It just seemed so… bizarre. But if he took out the frequent crying, it really wasn’t that different from the first time.

And this was Dean Winchester in front of him, not some random kid. Children, Benny had no idea how to handle after so many years of purposely avoiding the rascals. Dean, on the other hand, Dean he knew how to comfort. He’d done it plenty of times before, and now was no different.

Only when Dean looked slightly better did Benny say, “There, now that’s gonna be the last time we cry today, an’ we’re gonna walk through things slowly. Now, what happened, Dean?” All Benny knew was that Dean was obviously here in front of him, solid, not dead, and Dean wasn’t a random kid that had been tossed into his care.

Sure, Benny himself was dead, but even he wasn't dead _dead_. And if Dean 'died', then he'd be up with the big pearly gates, human heaven, not in monster heaven.

Dean took a second to calm down more, to collect himself maybe. “I,” his face scrunched up, “I can’t… remember a lot,” it had such a hopelessly lost sound to it as Dean rubbed his neck, like stimulation would help him recall.

“Surely you must ‘member how you… that,” Benny said softly and unable to say ‘dead’.

“I… I did something wrong, I know--” And there was that Winchester ‘I’m Just Gonna Blame Myself, Seems Like The Only Explanation’ attitude right there. A true Dean move. But Benny couldn’t really say anything about it, he’s done it many times himself.

“--took something in… I,” Dean shrugged up his shoulders before he coughed wetly.

This noise took Benny off guard, and made him worry more. It was a wet sounding noise, like all of Dean’s snot had run down the back of his throat from all that sniffling. Could he get sick? _Wa_ s he getting sick? Was Benny going to have a sick Dean on top of a mysterious, confused one?

He pushed the thought aside like if he avoided it, it might not come tree. “’ _Took something_ ’,” Benny repeated. “Like a… drug?” If it was a drug, why, Dean better just wish he were really dead because Benny was going to talk the boy’s ears off on doing so incredibly senseless.

Dean had no right looking at Benny like he was off his rocker, he was just the one saying that he had died. “No. Just… _something_. Something bad and mean.” At Benny’s ‘please go on, but only if you want to’ look, he continued nervously after a hiccup. “And it… it _hurt_. It hurt really bad. And it made me do s-stuff,” Dean suddenly snapped his head away to stare somewhere else. All of a sudden his voice was rushed and scared and firm. “I don’t wanna talk about it!”

“Whoa now, calm down, Dean,” They were finally getting somewhere, Dean could not lose himself now. Benny held out his hands non-threateningly, but it probably didn’t help much considering the blade in one. “We don’t have’ta talk about that, okay? No talkin’ ‘bout this thing. Zip.”

Dean gave him a weary glance, so Benny kept going, “That’s a no go zone, alright, brother, I gotcha. What about the light then? Why were you light an' smoke?”

“’Cause they were me.”

“Gonna have to be a tiny bit more specific than that.”

Dean rubbed his nose furiously. “I… I was going somewhere and… and then it didn’t like that,” His eyes started getting that scared look in them. “And it… Benny, it began pulling me b-back.”

Benny was trying really hard, he was, to understand what Dean was trying to tell him. The hunter just wasn’t communicating his thoughts well. Hadn’t been for the whole time he came back. “What is ‘it’? Was it the black haze or the blue?”

“Black,” Dean’s voice was getting softer.

“And that was you, though, right? You said you were both.”

He nodded and his hands began crumbling his shirt hem again between his palms. “Uh-huh. ‘It’ was… me. But it was also the bad thing.”

Benny let out a deep breath before glancing up at the trees. Dean was talking himself in circles, repeating the same information and still not making any sense while somehow confusing Benny even further. Not to mention that they have been sitting ducks for this entire conversation. After that crocotta, anything else could be around.

Scrubbing at his face, Benny looked back at Dean, who had begun to nervously chew his lip. “What exactly was that blue light?”

“It was me, remem--”

“No, no,” he interrupted. “What part of you was the blue light? The Dean I know sure didn’t look like that. Last time I looked at ‘im, he had a body, a face, hands, an’ everythin’. Not a whimsical stream of sunlight.”

Dean was going to bite right through his lip if he started chewing on them any harder. His mouth stopped its gnawing to instead open; and then close. Then open again as he spoke quietly, “Benny, what part of you goes to either Heaven or Hell when a person dies?” Dean’s tone sounded like he knew the answer, but wanted Benny to say the answer anyways.

“You’re soul,” He said tentatively. The boy decided to just stare at him back, waiting, until Benny got the point. _Hell_. “Are you tellin’ me,” he took a breath, “that you, standin' right in front of me, is Dean’s _soul_?”

The vamp never knew someone could make the ‘duh’ face while still looking close to tears. “I thought you knew that--” Benny heard what Dean was saying, but he wasn’t _hearing_ him. “--it was… note-notic-noticeable?”

Gawking, Benny shook his head. No. To him, it hadn’t been ‘noticeable’. But now that Dean had said it, boy, did everything seem to fall slightly into place. Benny moved his right leg a few inches back. Not to get away from Dean, but it gave him the illusion that he had more breathing space; even if he didn’t need it. “It was a little hard to tell, brother,” Benny stressed the syllables out. “What with you first comin’ here all flesh an’ bone an’ all.”

Boy, was the puzzle completing itself.

The frightened look on the kid’s face elevated into a terrified one. “Are you mad?” that little shaky voiced asked.

The vampire’s eyebrows rose. “’ _Mad’_?” Benny repeated the word slowly as if testing the adjective out. “Hell, no--” the exhale of relief from Dean was all too clear. “--Why, I’m just… just shocked, that’s all. Threw me through a loop. I’m not mad,” Benny tried to smile the best he could, and Dean also tried his best to give one back.

No, he wasn’t mad in the slightest. Benny was terrified.

Terrified of what, he had no damn idea. Benny furrowed his brow as he concentrated on a smudge of mud --or blood, who knew-- on his coat. Maybe it was because of how different this situation had become than the first time, where the circumstances were --while definitely not comfy by any means-- slightly… easier to handle. But damn, did the whole soul thing but things into perspective.

Benny got his wish; he got some of his answers, but now he wasn’t so sure that was a good thing.

The old vamp got back up on his feet and rubbed his back absentmindedly. Dean didn't smell like a chocolate fountain buffet to supernatural beings, to him, because he wasn't flesh and blood. The kid didn't have a heartbeat because again, _no flesh or blood_. Because Dean was not human anymore, he was just the soul of one.

And maybe that's why it had taken them this long to run into a not so friendly being. All the flesh eating monsters like Benny had nill interest in taking a bite of a soul. But a soul eating crocotta on the other hand...

He shouldn’t be as shocked as he was. Wasn’t Benny himself technically a soul? He had no body, that was back up on the surface --if Dean didn’t burn it that was. He should probably ask about that too sometime later. Not only did Benny sort of want to know, but if he escaped out of Purgatory he’d need his body. It would be impossible to return without one. But Dean on the other hand, he had a physical body with him last time from being transported down with the big leviathan boss.

Benny’s mind was jostling itself around like the ball of a tennis match. Knowing the answers definitely wasn’t looking so good now. Even more questions were swimming in his head. What would happen when --if-- they found their way back up to Earth? How would they get to Dean’s body? What if Sam or Cas or Bobby or _somebody_ had burned him? They’d both be helpless souls.

And with that, a haunting thought entered his head. What if they couldn’t get out? The spell to skedouche both of their asses up called for a human being, but could they do it without the whole physique part? Dean couldn’t transfer Benny if he was a soul too, right? Were they screwed?

The old vampire just realized he’d been drowning hopelessly in his endless thoughts and was tapping his booted foot on the damp ground for a good minute, and Dean was staring at him. “Not angry,” Benny repeated just one more time. He let out a fake, breathless laugh before dropping the display all together and watched Dean back. There seemed to be a lot of staring contests between them lately, like they were trying to figure each other out without words.

Seconds passed. Might as well rush right into it. “So you’re Dean’s soul.” Wouldn’t that be one hell of a conversation topic at parties. (‘Yeah, I’m a secretary for Stryker, what about you?’ ‘Oh, I’m a wandering entity without my corporal form which I call home. So, do you fish in your spare time?’)

The boy frowned, and if Benny wasn’t mistaken, there was the start of a dimple in the corner of his right cheek underneath all those dusty freckles. “You make it sound like I’m not all Dean, Benny.”

“Sorry,” he rushed to apologize, and was disturbed to find out that Dean had been sorta right. “If anythin’ you’re _more_ than Dean. You’re the core of Dean. You’re _Dean_ Dean--” Benny stopped himself before he said something like ' _you are the ultimate Dean, a super Dean_ '. Shit, he was rambling. Maybe he needed to take his own advice and take a deep breath to calm down. He couldn’t show any uncertainty about their situation around Dean. He shouldn’t be even thinking about how screwed they could be; children could smell the fear and anxiety with some pre-puberty sixth sense, right?

Wait, if this was Dean, didn’t he go through puberty already? Speaking of which, “If you’re technically a soul and are Dean,” Benny gestured to the boy, “why are you so… little? Wouldn’t it make sense if you took the form of how ya were before you --well, what you are right now currently? In your thirties, that is.” His rambling wasn’t getting any better.

If that boy kept staring at him with those immense eyes of his, Benny was going to enter Dean in some sort of ‘my child is cuter than your child’ contest. Dean would win those contest by just staring into the judges eyes until they all fell for him or were too intimidated to give him a score less than perfect. He bet they had a lot of those in the South. In fact, Benny knew they did.

“I don’t...” Dean trailed off, “I’m just _me_.”

“Of course,” he was quick to agree this time. Did Dean not fully understand? Dean hadn’t mentioned anything about how weird it was to suddenly be under five feet tall.

“You are you, but..." Benny strayed off. He had no idea how to approach this, "aren't you technically not all Dean?”

When Dean gave him that insulted look again, Benny rushed to push out, "I mean, you were the blue cloud too, and only a little bit of that light fell down. And that was you, but where's the rest of ya?" Was that the reason why Dean was so small? Because only a minuscule portion of himself escaped down on the ground? The tinier bit of soul means the tinier Dean Winchester?

Benny was so confused his head was going to start hurting any minute like it would if he stayed out in the sun for too long. Here he had a midget hunter who seemed to not recognize that he had lost a good couple of feet on him, and he didn’t know whether or not he could get Dean back on Earth, and he still had no idea where on earth --or somewhere else, perhaps-- the whole black smoke thing came from. Dean had said it was the bad thing, which was apparently him too. The evil side of Dean?

“I’m all Dean,” the poor boy had probably said that over fifty times today, and all because Benny kept questioning his existence. Dean was defending this point to the capital ‘T’ -- that was a neat term Benny had learned when he was back on Earth. “All Dean with a few-” A snivel interrupted the boy.

Red alarms bells began ringing off in Benny’s head as Dean let out another sniffle. He had just told the boy no more tears were going to be shed just a minute ago.

“A few ga-gaps in memories.”

“Hey, hey, that’s al’right,” Benny hastily said. “You’re Dean,” the boy must need to be constantly reminded that since Dean himself kept repeating it. Who was he trying to convince? Benny, or himself?

Dean didn’t look like he believed him, but he was trying to calm down again. “A few gaps,” he whispered, this time much calmer though still a bit shaky. “It’s all mostly feelings and sounds and noises and sm-smells. But there’s so many gaps and fuzziness,” he looked haunted, like it was seriously spooking him.

Something Dean said seem to hit Benny hard. All feelings and sounds?No, that couldn't be right. Benny himself was a soul, and nothing felt like that. He remembered the past because he _remembered_ it with memories, the whole nine yards. Was it because Dean was a human soul? Did human souls experience things differently? If that was the case, was that why Dean was so much more... emotional?

If that was true than all of Dean's actions from twisting his hands to tearing up multiple times today --all things normal Dean had on occasions done in front of Benny when he was stressed or sad-- made a lot of more sense too. If Benny had got a good reading on one thing about this Dean, it was that he didn't have any emotional filters. When he was sad, he cried. Happy, he smiled. Stressed, he wrung his hands.

There was no hardened man keeping back what he felt. This was a _soul_ in front of him. If it was all feelings, Dean own emotions must seem quadrupled than normal.

Dean was not only feeling stuff on a higher scale, but he couldn't push away those feelings with a shrug and maybe a tear.

Benny tried his hardest to be comforting and uplifting. “S’fine to not ‘member some things. I don’t recollect some stuff either, all blurs too.”

Dean seemed like he wanted to smile at that, but just couldn’t do it. Whatever Benny thought Dean’s reaction was going to be certainly wasn’t what the boy ended up retorting, “You don’t remember things because you’re old.”

Benny was momentarily floored as he gawked at a too innocent looking child, just needing a minute to comprehend what had happened. The comeback had been so familiar that it threw him; it had been so _Dean_. This --what, eight year old?-- had cracked a bad reply that taller Dean used to jab all the damn time.

Benny scoffed, and uncomfortably shifted, too stunned to come up with anything to say back. It got quiet between them. That almost tense moment where you don't know where the conversation could go, and it could easily tip to good or bad. “You--” Benny wanted to reach out and _noogie_ the unsuspecting child. “You little scalawag.” It was the best fitting term which wasn’t a vulgar word for a kid that Benny could think of one on the spot. But it earned him a small chuckle, and then Benny really did want to noogie the boy.

“What about this,” the vamp offered, “Why don’t we get along movin’ again and take a break from all these questions, huh?” He didn’t want to overload Dean, plus Benny was getting a nervous tick from staying in one place in too long. “Are you tired? Can you get tired, ‘cause you used to get real tired here b’fore.”

“A little, but not really,” Dean contradicted himself.

Narrowing his eyes, Benny watched Dean for any signs of fatigue on the boy’s face, but couldn’t find much; not even tons of emotional exhaustion which was incredible considering what they’ve been through today. Dean could just not be knocked down for long. “Okay, we’ll keep on walkin’ some more,” Benny couldn’t wait to get rid of the uneasy tick and fear of ambush of him.

"Are we still going home?" The boy looked worried and his hands started going for his shirt hem again.

"’Course we are," It was a little white lie, and Benny just hoped Dean couldn't pick up on it as a soul. Could human souls pick up lies like some sort of glowing lie detector?

From Dean's relieved expression, it looked like he believed him. Benny almost felt guilty, but it's not like he could tell the boy that there was an overwhelming possibility that he could never leave Purgatory ever again. They'd still walk towards the portal and test it out. How they could escape, Benny had no idea, not without a human body to transport the souls.

He had to try though, for Dean.

“But first we’ll make a small pit stop, maybe wash those dirty clothes of yours.”

Dean scowled as he looked down at his shirt, and was surprised to see just how much gunk was actually on him. He frowned even more, and the dimple got deeper. “Gross.”

The old vampire smiled this time, big and wide. Dean was just too damn cute; something he swore to himself right then and there that he’d tell exactly what he had just thought about to larger Dean.

 

 

Glancing up at the sky, Benny could see the fog come crawling in on its misty white hands through the tree line. He could also smell the damp humidify of it and wanted to roll his eyes. That was just what they needed, something to obscure their view and make everything much harder. Nobody liked soggy and damp clothes clinging to them. Benny didn't even think the damn plants soaked up the vaporized water, just collected it on their leaves and released it all on whoever was passing by. A Purgatory plant’s way of saying ‘fuck you in particular’.

He could never understand why Purgatory produced mist, but then never go all out and create a pouring rain to –literally-- dampen their spirits. Maybe the spooky and annoyance factor of fog was enough for the monster graveyard.

"Is it going to rain?" Dean asked from right by his side. Ever since the crocotta and Dean's little reveal, the boy had stuck to his side even closer than normal. Every now and then Dean would do a full turn around to check out his surroundings, green eyes paying close attention to all the shadowy places.

Benny wasn't annoyed by it in the least. In fact, he preferred it. The more alert and closer Dean, who didn't seem like he was capable of any fighting at all, was as to him, the safer he was. "It doesn't rain down here, Dean, you know that." Benny now paid better attention to his tone and made sure he didn't sound in the least bit angry. He didn't want to accidentally upset a human emotional time bomb.

"Oh," a pause, "oh, yeah."

A couple of snaps of something breaking a branch resounded in his ears, but Benny was able to focus on it and pinpoint it to far, far away. But just in case he turned Dean and himself to the left, the opposite direction from where the noise came from. Dean didn't question the random change, but instead focused his hardest on not tripping over a rock for the fourth time today. Benny watched the boy's reflectors on his shoes catch what little light there was while Dean picked his foot over a particularly singular shaped rock.

It’d been only what seemed like a couple hours since their big talk, and both of them seemed nowhere near tired. When Dean was down here the first time they had to stop regularly, but Benny guessed when you were made of pure energy like the rest of them, then he didn't really get exhausted by just walking.

"Where are we going, Benny?" That little voice asked.

"Followin' the river," he replied. That damn river was both welcomed and hated by Benny. Its noise gave him a location, but sometimes it was too loud and drowned out the quieter noises, which were the most important ones to hear.

"Then why did we turn?" So Dean was confused with the direction change. It was good to be aware.

Benny didn't exactly want to tell him that he had heard another monster, but what else what he say? "I wanted to avoid somethin'," maybe Dean wouldn't ask what he wanted to avoid, because Benny would really have to lie then. He still preferred not to lie to Dean. "But we're gonna make an arch and swing around in a little bit." Benny tapped his own ear, and Dean looked at him quizzically. "I can hear the river, so I'll know where it is."

Dean smiled, and Benny still got a kick out of seeing the boy's gap in his gums at his missing tooth. Not only was it just adorable, especially with all those freckles dusted across his nose and cheeks, but it was hilarious because many vampires in the media are shown with elongated canines. Benny remembered when Dean had first told him about new vampire fiction. It had been in Purgatory and after they finally got to know each other. Hell, Dean could barely contain himself as he spewed on and on about vampire teen books and movies until Benny was thoroughly experiencing second hand embarrassment.

"Benny?" Little Dean asked.

"Hm?"

"Will you tell me a story?"

Benny's eyebrows rose as he lifted a branch, which had made sure to slap against his coat and drench a spot, out of the way for Dean. "A story?"

Dean looked almost shy. "Yeah, about you. You don't say a lot about your past unless you have to so..." He drifted off.

The vamp gave the boy a grin and couldn’t help but tease, "How do you know I don't? Maybe you can't recall it?"

For a second Dean did look shocked, like maybe he really _didn't_ remember such a thing. But then he shook his head and frowned up at Benny. "That's not true," he said in the perfect, pouty, little kid's voice. "Benny's lying, I would know a little bit." His pouting gave him a little lisp but Benny didn't want to risk mentioning it unless he wanted an angry child after him.

Benny raised his free hand up, palm forward. "You got me--"

"I told you!" He looked too triumphant over such a small victory. "You don't say much about you, and I really wanna hear story about you, Benny."

"Oh, I don't know--"

"I'll tell you a secret." Dean quickly interrupted again.

He stopped. A story in exchange for a secret? Fair enough. "Hm, what kind of secret?"

"A super secret," Dean's voice lowered into a whisper, just to show how much of a secret it was, "No one knows kind of secret."

"Not even Sam or Castiel?"

It was pretty cute how Dean automatically transitioned into nicknames. "Not even Sammy or Cas."

Whoa, that was a super secret then. Benny examined the kid, wondering about the possibility that it might be a secret that Benny may not want to know. If Dean doesn't tell his brother or his best friend, then it was a pretty serious, perhaps dark, secret. Curiosity got the better of him though, and he nodded, "Okay, spill."

"No," it was a rather blunt reply. Now Dean's face was serious. "Last time I went, you wouldn't go for a little bit. So you go, then I'll tell you"

Was Dean talking about that "Poor Man's Luck" game? Well, it wasn't like the tator tot Dean was wrong. Looked like he still catches on pretty quick. "Alright," Benny ducked his head and smiled. Dean had got him all curious, so he damn well wanted to hear that secret. That boy was practically bribing him. No, he _was_ bribing him. "A story 'bout me? B'fore I became a vamp?" At Dean's nod, Benny scrunched up his nose, trying to think of something. His life hadn't been all that interesting. Just a little Louisiana boy who lived in the good old fashioned house with a white picket fence.

It took some time to drag up something, but Dean just walked next to him in silence, patient all of a sudden. While Benny was searching old faded memories, he took this time to begin to turn them around in their arch back to the river. Benny hadn't realized his life was so normal until he was forced to think about it.

"I was 'bout your age," Benny finally spoke, and he saw Dean immediately straighten up, eager to listen. "I think I r‘member me and my best friend at that time, James, an American boy, tryin' to pull our first theft. Our only theft. Funny how everyone back then was either called John, James, Matthew, Benjamin, William, or George back then." He stopped himself and tried to get back on track.

"I was an only child in the family, so James was more of a brother than a friend." Benny didn't know why he even liked the kid, he was always dragging Benny in trouble. Good thing they went their separate ways in high school. "Well, he told me this one day that Mrs. Burns got these two brown kittens--" when Dean scrunched up his nose, Benny was almost too happy to see it. Seems like some things never changed, not even Dean's personal dislike for cats. "--that was from her own cat's, non-approved, litter.

"So James said that he overheard her at the farmers market plannin’ to toss ‘em in the lake to be gator food--"

There was a tiny, shocked gasp from the boy. "No, she didn't! Even I would never do that!" Dean's already squeaky voice rose. "That's murder!"

"Shh," Benny shushed him, not wanting to gain any extra attention. It was already getting harder to see because of the fog and smell with the damp, clogging misty water in the air. "An' yes, supposedly she said that. Now stay quiet for the story, huh?"

Dean went all the way to mimicking zipping his mouth closed and throwing away the key. Benny eyed him.

"Good, now where was I? So James decided that him an’ I should steal the cats an' keep 'em. We thought up a plan to have James distract Mrs. Burns while I snuck into the back and grabbed the kittens --this was before everybody started lockin' their doors and gates," Benny cleared up, and Dean nodded seriously.

The old vamp let out a huff of laughter, but he couldn't quite tell if it was a sad or happy laugh. It was just all coming back to him. "So James went up to the door an' knocked as I went in the back. When I heard him talkin' to Mrs. Burns, I r'member runnin' in all huffed up. I searched everywhere for the reascals before finally spottin' the tiny, furry things behind the kitchen door. The kittens were nappin' with Momma in a basket so I snatched the kittens, much to the surprise of Momma Cat. Then I began clutchin' the kittens to my chest when suddenly Mrs. an' Mr. Burns come a'runnin' into the room.

"You see, if anyone was to come, James was supposed to give me some sort of signal so I'd know when to drop the mission an' run; but the bast--punk was talkin' to Mrs. Burns when Mr. Burns's car comes drivin' up the street. My partner in crime wimped out and fled down the street without givin' me any signal. This obviously perked the couple's suspicions an' they walked in on me." Benny could imagine the scene perfectly. He had been in his Sunday's best with his black choir pants and white collared shirt, standing there with wide eyes and holding two, very upset, meowing kittens.

"You had to hand the kittens back?" Dean whispered, eyes wide and scared just like Benny's had been back then.

"Uh-huh, James left me for dead so I was left without any backup, an’ I had to give the kittens back."

"But they were gonna drown them!”

Benny patted Dean's head and marveled at how much softer his hair was compared to his Dean. Taller Dean always did seem to put some kind of hair gel in his hair, even though he didn't want to admit it. And in Purgatory his hair was covered in blood, which sorta did make it a tad stiffer when it dried. "Naw, they didn't."

"But--"

"They weren't plannin' to in the first place," Benny revealed. "James had either heard the information wrong, or was pullin' a trick on me. The couple wanted to give away the kittens to the family down the river, since they've been lookin' for two barn cats for awhile."

"Oh," Dean kicked a small fallen branch out of the way. The boy began swinging his arms and smiled down at the ground. "I like that story."

Benny had a strong urge to put his fist to his mouth and bite into his because he couldn't handle this Dean even more than he could taller Dean.

Nodding, Dean twitched his nose in the little way he does when he's decided something. "Okay, that story deserves the super secret. It's about animals too."

"Oh?"

"I've always wanted a pet," it was said in a very matter of fact tone, and Dean stared at Benny straight on, which he really shouldn't keep doing if he wanted to stop tripping all over the place.

Well Benny might have been able to have guessed that. Surely even Dean Winchester would want something like a fish or reptile once on his life. All Benny just hoped for was this secret wouldn't turn into a game of 'Poor Man's Luck'. "That ain't that much of a super secret, Dean."

The boy just started at him harder. "No, you don't understand. I've always wanted a special type of pet."

"An iguana?" He guessed. At the shake of Dean's head, Benny tried again. "Scorpion? Piranha? Corn snake? Ferret--"

"A puppy."

Now that threw Benny for a loop. "A _dog_?" He asked incredulously. Last time he checked, Dean was all about being anti-dog. Benny remembered him raving about how Sam always wanted one and how he hated that wet dog smell. "What type of dog? A Doberman or Collie? What about a shelter mutt?"

Dean took a deep breath and finally looked away. Then he puffed up his chest, like he was proud of his decision. "A Yorkie."

Label Benny completely and utterly thrown over a fifty mile wide loop. The vamp's mouth opened, but then closed it as he realized he actually didn't know what to say. So he opted for instead staring ahead. Dean waited patiently until Benny was ready to speak up, "You want a Yorkie," it wasn't a question, but more like Benny solidifying the fact in his head. "A _Yorkie_?" Now that was a little more questioning.

He gave Dean a big survey, stared from his head to toe, trying desperately to imagine the boy with a Yorkie. That, he guessed, he could see a little; little boys and small dogs went together. But then he tried to image _his_ Dean with a Yorkie, and Benny felt very conflicted over that. Dean Winchester, a firehouse, six foot plus man holding a tiny Yorkie. Benny was just imagining it and it seemed hilarious, but on the other hand, it would be so unexpected and off that it'd feel almost right.

Instead of laughing or asking further, Benny found himself saying, very seriously for it was an important question, "What would you name it?"

Dean beamed. "His name would be Caden, and he wouldn't have a long coat like all those lame Yorkies because he'd have a puppy cut coat." _He's done research on this_. "He'd still be fluffy though and perfect, and he's have a nice collar and leash, but I don’t know what color it’ll be." Dean patted Benny's arm. "You're the first one I told this, thank you."

Benny felt like an honor had been bestowed upon him, and like hell he would go and make Dean take it back. "He'd be a mighty fine dog," the vampire said, to which Dean murmured something in agreement. "But why wouldn't you tell anyone this? Why keep this a secret?" If Benny could get used to the thought of Dean with a tiny Yorkie dog, surely the people he knew could. Hell, Sam and Cas would probably gush all over that dog.

The kid made a big show of sighing. "Because they would think it’s stupid."

"Stupid? I didn't think for one second it was stupid. Perhaps strange, but never stupid."

"You don't get it, Benny," Dean complained. "I've told Sammy over and over and over about no dogs, he'd think I was being a hip-hippo--"

"Hypocrite?"

Dean turned mournful eyes up at Benny. "Hypocrite." The boy then proceeded wipe his snot encrusted arm sleeve on some leaves that he could reach, starting to get his shirt really soaked.

It took a second for Benny to realize Dean was trying to give his shirt an impromptu wash, and he was confused on how he himself had been walking here getting soaked and not think about that earlier. He watched as Dean kept trying to reach dew covered leaves as they walked past. "Well," Benny drawled as he tried to think of a good way to phrase this, "why didn't you just let Sam get a dog if ya wanted one so badly?"

Mournful eyes turned to 'duh' ones. "Because I didn't want a normal puppy, I wanted a Yorkie. Sam never said anything about wanting a Yorkie. I think he petted one once, and he didn’t seem to enjoy it." Dean turned the tables on nature and kicked a grey rock a few feet. "Plus we never could get one anyways. Hunting and everything."

That was one hell of a good point. Benny wanted to say something reassuring, like maybe one day they could get that Yorkie, but he didn't honestly know if that would happen. The thought of Dean settling down was almost as impossible as Dean wanting a Yorkie had been in the beginning. If he had learned one think about the hunter, it was that he just never stopped.

A silence engulfed them as their conversation trailed off, and they continued to walk. It wasn’t the uneasy type of silence, rather the comfortable kind that two close can people share. Benny went back to straining to hear any singular noises near them while Dean began humming a familiar tune. The vampire distractedly listened to the tune for a while before he idly tried to match it up to any of the songs he knew.

It was ‘ _The Hall of the Mountain King_ ’.

Benny ducked his head down shyly so that his hat hid his grinning. It was one of Benny’s favorites, he didn’t know why he hadn’t instantly recognized it. He used to whistle it all the damn time before, especially when he and taller Dean were taking out some ‘sons of a bitches’. And here Dean was humming it while they walked off their first encounter with another Purgatory resident.

Looking from his left and right and decidedly not at Dean, Benny started to hum softly along when Dean started it all over again. He almost smiled and wouldn’t have been able to keep up his humming when Dean abruptly stopped. Benny could feel that little face look up at him with those big green eyes of his. The vampire continued on, waiting to see what the little hunter would do.

Slowly, but surely, Dean began humming it again. Benny made the transition to whistling instead, and Dean didn’t stop. They kept this little tune up with Benny whistling and Dean humming until the boy decided to go all out with it. He started trying to sing it, using ‘duh’s and ‘dun’s. It seemed Dean couldn’t whistle now --probably because of that missing tooth-- and it nearly melted Benny into nothing.

So they continued to whistle and sing The Nutcracker’s song, making their way back to the river. They were like a little, two-person marching band. They would mess up every now when one of them would get a little over eager and quickening up while other didn’t.

To Benny, he thought it was way better than Edvard Grieg’s original ‘ _Hall of the Mountain King_ ’.

Their beautiful impromptu musical slowly faded to its end after a while as Benny’s lips began to ache and Dean became distracted by the sound of a steady breeze whipping through the trees. He could tell that they were starting to slow down and it came to him that his feet were getting sore again. No doubt Dean was feeling the same.

They had rounded back up to the river again, it’s comforting rippling showing them the way they needed to go. Benny watched Dean try to desperately rub his dirty sleeves against the wet leaves for a few more seconds before he came up with an idea.

“Dean."

“Hm?” Dean looked up innocently from where he had been picking at the dried mucus on his sleeve.

And so it was decided.

Benny gestured with his weapon at the river and made his way towards it. “Why don’t we settle down for a bit? A good hour to rest and wash that shirt of yours.” He gave a pointed look to the boy’s dirty hands. “All of you seems to need a good washin’.” Benny wouldn’t mind washing his arms either after having them touch a crocotta’s pelt.

The boy blinked at the river from the shore before narrowing his eyes, as if checking for any monsters. "Okay," Dean agreed soon enough, and the vampire wondered if when Dean was little he had liked swimming in those cruddy little outside pools that some motels had.

Benny made a sound of approval as he shifted his weapon from one hand to the other as he rolled up his coat sleeves before bending down to untie his shoes. Dean saw what he was doing and quickly bent down to copy Benny. Shoes and socks shucked off of them both and pants rolled up, they left them there and walked forwards, their bare feet meeting smooth river rocks. The vampire couldn't detect any creature close enough to get the drop on them, and hopefully nothing down here would steal their shoes. He never knew with the wackos that roamed in this monster graveyard.

They tip toed across the river rocks until they were close enough to where they could put their feet in the river. Benny sat down --letting out a praise of thanks to no one when he finally got to rest his aching feet-- on the stones and put his hat and double sided axe on the ground behind him. No one wanted a wet hat.

To him this moment was practically surreal. Here he was in Purgatory taking a little _dip_ in the river with a tator tot sized Dean Winchester. Benny never took leisure time to splash around in the water, too busy trying to shake something off his tail or hunting for something to eat. He wasn't much of a 'messy eater' anyways, so it wasn't like Benny was walking around covered in blood and other bodily substances.

But bigger Dean had been another story in Purgatory. He was constantly getting something splashed all over him, and Dean detested stopping for a ‘romp in the river’. Dean hated thathe had to wash his face so his entire face didn't feel sticky, always complaining about how something would catch up with them. Benny thought Dean had something against rivers, lakes, and maybe water all together; like a cat.

As Benny stared at the river and rolled up his pants, he thought about how misleading it was. The clear water gave the impression that it was only a few feet, but Benny knew that it went down deep. However, he had never gone in that far to test it, in fear something would rise up out of its depths and swallow him in two bites. Like a leviathan.

He stuck to the ankle deep rule. Just like his momma had taught him for sharks at the beach during dusk. Benny slowly pushed his sock-less feet into the cold river water where Dean just plopped down and dropped his in. It was freezing, as normal, but Dean didn't seem to mind. The boy just dipped his hands into the water and scrubbed at his arms. If he wasn't careful, he'd get himself drenched.

"Here," Benny said, holding out his hand. "Give me your shirt, and we'll try our darnedest to wash it." The kid-friendly curse felt weird in his mouth, but he was trying for Dean. Even if the boy in front of him was technically the soul of a thirty-five year old, he looked like he should be in the second grade.

Dean struggled for a second as he tried not to touch his shirt with his wet hands, even though it was about to get a crude washing, but gave up and accepted his fate. He pulled off his green shirt and handed it to Benny, curious.

It seemed Benny was more nervous about Dean pulling his shirt off then Dean was. He knew this was his idea in the first place, but what if something attacked them? Dean's upper half wouldn't have any protection at all and be a target point.

The vamp laid it on the dry stones --while convincing himself that he had checked many times, there was nothing threatening near them-- and dragged one arm sleeve at a time into the water, trying not to get the entire thing wet. He grimaced as he had to press into the snot encrusted parts with his fingers, trying to wipe it off. Benny switched sleeves once he thought he had done a satisfactory job before he did the collar of the shirt next. Dean devoted all his focus on Benny's make shift laundry washing.

"That should do just fine," Benny said triumphantly when he finished. He held up the dripping shirt. "We'll just lay it here in the sun here to dry a little." Without a good ol’ drying machine, it would take the shirt hours to dry; time they didn't have. Looked like someone was going to be wearing a damp shirt. "Until then, we can sit back and relax a little." Benny scooted tad closer to the water so he could sink his feet in just a little more.

'Relaxation'. Wasn't that just a funny thing in Purgatory? Benny looked forward to it, and he promised himself he wouldn’t spend _every_ second trying to hear if anything was sneaking up on them.

Benny was just about to ask Dean what he wanted to talk about when the little boy interrupted, "I... I killed you."

Benny’s loosening body stiffened.

Dammit all. The vampire knew there was never such thing as ‘relaxation’ in Purgatory. He turned a little towards Dean, curious to see where this turn of topic came from. The little boy was wriggling his toes in the water as he focused on the rippling waves; advoiding eye contact.

Well, the boy wasn’t wrong. “Why, you did,” Benny didn’t know what to say, so he just agreed slowly and hoped for the best. He preferred not to think of that day in the brightly spray-painted alley. It hadn’t exactly been one of his top five favorite memories. If he dwelled on it for two long, he could almost feel the millisecond ache in his neck of his head being sliced off.

He was a little shocked that Dean was bringing this up. Benny had always suspected that if by some damn miracle they did ever see each other again, they would both avoid the subject like the plague. Nothing like building back up your friendship with talking about how one of them killed the other.

“Why, though?” Dean blurted out. “Why did I kill you?” Words like those sounded so weird coming from an eight year old. Or nine year old, Benny couldn’t tell. Dean probably didn’t even know.

“You know why,” Benny flipped a rock in the stream with his big toe. “For your brother and friend.” He leaned to his right, giving Dean a light shove. Dean made a cute little noise of protest at the push. “I don’t know if you recall, but I agreed to it too.”

“But _why_?” The eight year old voice was harsh this time, so different from the adorable whine he had just made. He finally looked up at Benny, frowning angrily. The dimple was back. “Why did you want to? You should have said ‘no, Dean, you stupid head’.”

The vampire laughed, though it wasn’t exactly a cheerful one. He felt like he needed to reach out and ruffle the boy’s hair. “Me an’ Earth didn’t quite mix so well, I told ya that.” Benny gave Dean a worried look. Was the kid just remembering all of this? He didn’t feel so comfortable knowing a kid was watching the moment over and over again where he beheaded Benny.

“No!” Dean spat. He began squeezing his little fists into the small rocks; his knuckles were turning white. “That’s not right! We could have found another way to get Sammy and Bobby! I was wrong!” The boy was livid, and Benny had no idea what say.

“I…” Benny tried to start. “It just –Why don’t we stop talking ‘bout this? You don’t wanna talk ‘bout this.”

“No, _you_ don’t want to talk about it! This is _serious_ , Benny!”

The vampire had been thinking about what would happen when he got Dean to the portal that led top-side since he decided that Dean was the real Dean. He wasn’t quite sure he wanted to leave Purgatory again --‘if they could’ his mind helpfully put in-- after the first failed attempt. The sun hurt, he couldn’t eat any food, he had an uncomfortable addiction to real human blood again, and he had been left by the only true friend he had. Not that it was Dean’s fault, of course.

But then again, _Dean_ was going to be up there. And wasn’t Dean Winchester just always the deal breaker.

Dean glowered daggers at him. “I’m going to get you out of here. I promise.” Benny was struck speechless by the sheer amount of determination in his voice, and Dean kept going, “We’re going to leave this stinky place, and you’re going to come back to the Bunker with me, and we’re going to rob a hospital, and we’re going to get make you feel all better, and--” Dean stopped so he could breathe “-- we’re going to get you all these blankets ‘cause you’re so cold, and I _promise_.”

It looked like Dean was as stubborn as he had the day they met. And though Winchesters sometimes never went through with their promises, they sure as hell never forget them. Benny felt touched, and he softened. “You’re makin’ me blush.” Well, he would be reddening if he could.

The boy blinked, thrown for a loop. He watched Benny, almost wearily, as he expected Benny to add a ‘but’ and protest against the boy. Dean must have seen something agreeable in his face, because the boy brightened considerably. He smiled small at first before it turned into a full blown grin. It was almost too loveable when the boy shyly ducked his head and kicked his feet up and down to splash the water.

No matter how hard Dean tried, he still couldn't hide his face completely. Benny could see the deep red blush going in those freckled cheeks. Why, he blushed just like taller Dean did, which made sense considering they were the same person. Dean rarely graced him with a blush, so Benny was going to milk this opportunity with all his worth, just like usual.

He remembered the day in Purgatory where Dean's face reddened in embarrassment for the first time. It had also been the first time Dean had fallen asleep on Benny's shoulder and had woken up with his arms curled around the vampire's arm. That hunter had blushed and stammered for a good three minutes afterwards.

After some time Dean stopped getting so bashful after waking up to find himself leaning on Benny, and that had been a good day too.

So Dean had always been this adorable.

"Ah," Benny sat up straighter and tried to get a better look at the chagrined Winchester. "Now who’s the one blushin'?"

"Am not!" Dean objected, keeping his face down.

"Are too," Benny retorted, changing his voice to match Dean's whiny one.

"Not!" Dean crossed his arms over his chest and kicked a small stone in the water. Poor thing was trying his best to act angry, and failing. The little hunter couldn't keep the sulking act up for long. The boy burst into a small amount of giggles soon after.

That was it, Benny was done.

"All right, that's enough of this," The vampire picked up his cap by its brim and plopped it down on Dean's head. He made sure to pull it down to, so it'd cover Dean's blushing face. There, now there was no way Benny would combust from how cute little Dean was. It had started to become ridiculous.

Dean's head immediately popped up in response to the attack, and he sat up ramrod straight. The hat engulfed the boy's head like a snake did to a mouse. The front quickly slid down until it was covering the boy's eyes, leaving the boy blind and momentarily stupefied.

It was cute. There wasn't a word for how cute it was. Kittens and puppies had nothing on Dean Winchester.

Benny blinked at the sight. He hadn't been thinking that the hat was going to be too big. And damn, he had just made the problem worse.

The boy made a sound of grump protest and with his skinny freckled palms of his hands, lifted the cap by its brim so it was at least out of his eyes. Benny's cap made his --now truthfully pouting-- face seem much smaller. Dean let out an impressive whine, " _Benny_ ," he even stretched it out long.

Benny wished he had a camera as a soft rumble of laughter in his chest began. This was a picture worthy moment. The kind parents keep a picture of in their wallets.

"Benny," Dean whined, and the hat began slipping down again when the boy tried to adjust his grip on it. "Benny, this isn't funny." The boy gave his best try at pouting, but he just couldn't keep it up. He tried huffing one more time, but the boy's own giggle stopped him.

Dean smiled wide up at him, still holding up the damn hat. Benny plucked the cap from Dean's head --too much of this sweetness and his teeth would rot out from cavities-- and smacked it down on his. "With how you look, I would give the hat to ya, brother, but I got a feelin' it would leave you blind forever."

The two grinned at each other. It was that type of sneaky grin like they were passing a secret between them. But there was no secret to pass along, they were just simply happy with each other's company.

Benny had missed this. These quiet, peaceful little moments with Dean. He just hadn't realized how much he had missed it until now. He missed it a lot.

So they sat there a bit longer, splashing their feet in the river and enjoying the rest while they still could. The sky seemed to be dimming, the setting sun trying to give them a warning before the moon’s arrival. Benny wanted to be some good bit away from the river when the sun set, so they would have to get moving soon. Strange, hungry creatures rose out of the waters during dusk, and any one of them could have 'soul' in its main appetite. Plus Benny had heard some snapping of branches some way from them awhile back. He still didn't feel as comfortable with staying still, knowing he wasn't putting any distance between them.

Benny allowed them a little more time though, and he watched as Dean tried to stack a whole bunch of river rocks. The small, pied tower collapsed with a soft noise about two times before Dean starting building a base made of rocks and building upon it like a pyramid.

Dean's little architect project reminded him of the black river stone in his pocket. Should he give it back now? Or did Dean still not want it because of his pap's game? Benny would just keep it to himself then just for a little while longer. He wondered if the river was too frigid and Dean's feet were getting unknowingly cold. Benny couldn't tell himself.

The vampire pushed the stones in front of his feet away and dug his toes in the little hole it made. When was the last time he had touched this river on purpose? He didn't need to bathe because he didn’t produce body odor --thank God-- or wash any clothes. If his clothes got too dirty or bloodied, he'd just take another monster's if the size was right. Speaking of clothes, Dean's shirt wasn't soaked anymore, just damp.

Benny gave them five more minutes before he let out a big sigh. Dean instantly knew it was time to leave and copied Benny and took a deep breath. They removed their feet from the river at the same time and tried to dry them off by shaking them before they put their socks on. No one liked socks on wet feet.

Words were only exchanged when Benny asked if Dean needed help putting on his shoes --he didn't. The vampire helped Dean put on his much cleaner shirt, and had to hold back a chuckle when the boy scrunched his face up when the damp material clung to his skin. They brushed themselves off, Benny picked up his weapon, and they were on their way.

"That was fun," Dean piped up as they were walking. It was much foggier in the woods then it was right by the river. "Can we do that again?"

"If we find the time," Benny easily agreed as he fixed the slipping cuffs on his coat.

They started heading west. The noises were back and behind them, maybe a quarter of a mile away. Like hell he was going to inform the easily panicked eight year old next to him. It was probably fine anyways, nothing to stress over. It would be absolutely dead silent if the creature was hunting them, and many Purgatory creatures did not give a shit about anyone and were just passing by.

"Do you think when we get back home, we can go to a beach?" Dean asked. "I've always wanted to go to the beach and build a good sandcastle. We could build a good sand castle together. Do you think that's a good idea?"

Benny wondered if Dean would still want to go to the beach after they got him back into his body. He raised an eyebrow. "Dean, I can't go out in the sun. Not unless you want crispy bacon for a Benny." He wasn't even sure if gallons of sunscreen could prevent that catastrophe. Did some vampires commit suicide by going tanning? Surely at one point the sun would be as effective as chopping of their head.

"Oh, yeah," Dean sounded disappointed, but that didn't last for long. He had such a determined face on as he pushed a low hanging branch that Benny accidently missed out of his face. "Well, then we can just bring the beach to you."

"Really?"

"Yeah," the little hunter seemed very sure of himself. "We can get sand and a plastic pool, and even more sand. I promised I'd make Benny feel better, and I will even if I have to build my sandcastle inside." He quieted, thinking. “We can get some hermit crabs too from Petco, but you gotta be careful or they’ll pinch your toes.”

Benny was about to say something truly sappy, but before he could there was a crash in the distance. It had been the clacking of rocks landing on other rocks and it had been much, much closer this time. _Shit_ , Benny whipped his head around. It had caught up to them, and the vamp had a gut feeling that it wasn’t very friendly.

Reflexes made him instantly back Dean up against a tree and his arms flew out on his sides as he desperately tried to look through the increasing fog.

Dean let out a tiny squeak of surprise, but instantly quieted as he realized Benny's stiff posture. Benny wasn't even touching Dean and yet he could feel him --what Benny had thought to be energy-- around him swirl in what seemed like nervous tumbling. It hit the vampire that even though the boy was as unmoving as a stillborn calf, _Dean_ was moving and squirming; his damn soul was. At least there was no furious heartbeat to give them away.

 _Why had it been so much closer this time_? The snapping had been a mile off at least last time he heard, it couldn't have possibly gotten this close in such a short amount of time. Benny had been keeping track of it, that was impossible. He tried to listen in closer, tried to hear breather or anything to place where it was.

Chills ran up Benny's spine as the sound of something walking on the ground was pretty loud and clear. Dean, who had absolutely no enhancement of hearing, pushed his back against his tree when even he clearly heard the noises, like he was trying to be sucked up into the bark. There was no red eyes gleaming through the white mist and whatever it was, it didn't need to breathe.

Benny tested the weight of his blade and set his mouth in a grim line. He had hoped they would have more than just a few hours after the crocotta attack before something decided to try to make them its dinner.

If he wasn't imagining it, he thought he saw movement behind a vine covered pine, but it quickly disappeared again. So it was only a few paces in front of them, and _Benny hadn't been able to tell_. He tried listening harder and could only hear the soft padding in front of them.

So there was only one, like the crocotta.

"Stay here," Benny whispered back to Dean, who immediately grabbed the back of his coat with both hands.

" _Benny_ \--"

" _Quiet_ ," if the creature didn't already know Dean was here, then Benny didn't want to go around tipping it off that he was. The croccotta had potentially tracked them and it didn't know Dean was a tasty soul until the boy showed his face. "Dean, I need you to stay right here an' hide, you hear me?" Benny murmured ferociously as he pointed to the closest bush to his right with his blade. "You hide an’ don't come out ‘til I get you, _frère_."

Dean, in the most inelegant fashion possible, dove for the bush and crawled under it. Benny winced for him as he saw the lower branches scratch and catch on his shirt before the boy was engulfed by the bush. When Dean came out, Benny might just figure out if the human soul could bleed like the rest of the monsters' did.

Benny gave one last glance at the bush before turning his attention in front of him where the sounds finally slowed down and stopped. Unwilling to bring the fight any closer to Dean, Benny moved forward. Old feelings of protective fury resurfaced after such a long, long time. 

He ran.

The visibility was horrible, and Benny just hoped for the best. The world whizzed by in a fraction of a second before all the wind was knocked out of him as his shoulder slammed into something that was definitely solid. As soon as his regained their footing on the ground, he straightened up, adrenaline filling his body, and was ready to go for the throat, when he saw his competitor.

The monster was making a wet, wheezing sound. A stark-naked woman’s body rose up slowly from the ground on bare, greyish feet. It stared back at Benny through the eyeless sockets of a canine skull head that was placed, almost delicately it seemed, on its reedy neck. It made the same sort of soft laughing noise that Benny had once heard long ago in a circus act with hyenas. (What was it with the hyenas today?) The act hadn’t gone well, and the man had lost an ear.

Benny’s mind raced to try to locate the type of monster, trying to figure out how to kill it, and the thing stood still patiently, waiting. Waiting for what, though? He decided he didn’t want to figure it out and decided to just take his chances and decapitate the thing --if you didn’t know what it was, decapitate it. It may not be completely dead, but it couldn’t do much with its body one place and the head another.

Benny lunged forward and swung his axe at the being with as much force as he could muster, creating a hissing sound as it glided through the air. The blade connected and would have slid right through the flesh and bone if it hadn’t had _stopped_.

The vamp found himself close up and personal the white canine skull as his blade imbedded itself in the creature’s neck only a millimeter deep. _Whoa, and hello, darling_. Benny got an unwanted eyeful of fangs near his face as he struggled to pull his blade out of the passive monster. _Shit_ , shit this isn’t good. It his blade couldn’t pierce it, neither could his teeth.

Dammit all. Benny gritted his teeth and held back the urge to let his second of teeth slide forward as he took a step back. It was only when he was about to run back, pick up Dean like a sack of potatoes, and get the hell out of there, when Benny remembered something so trivial but so _important_. His mind flashed back to the time when he was back on earth and Dean had sat him down to watch some ‘classics’. He remembered this one movie of a trilogy about damn dinosaurs.

This encounter had happened quicker than a drop of a dime, and it was only three seconds in that Benny realized what was so terribly wrong.

With a grunt he pulled the ax out of the monster’s neck, _a monster who was doing nothing_ , and twisted around towards where he had come from and screamed, “ _Dean_!” His heart seemed to sky rocket into his throat along with all his other organs. _No_. Benny ran back to the clearing, lucky enough the creature still had no interest in attacking him even after his attempt to behead it. Too overcome by the chilly fingers of fear, Benny left all regard for stealth behind as crashed through Purgatory and shouted another, more raw, “ _Dean_!”

He skidded to a stop by the bush Dean had hid under. He had left him there just six seconds ago, but there was no Dean Winchester under it. Instead there were thin marks of someone dragging their hands through the dirt as they were _dragged_ out. _They had taken Dean_.

Benny looked around furiously and no Dean or skull face were around. His eyes zeroed in on the marks on the ground, there were more of them leading towards the south, and something slid into place then. Something angry and primal.

And he went fucking after them.

He could feel the steady stream of anger and _fear_ coursing through him as he ran into branch after branch, wildly hoping that the marks wouldn’t fade. He tried to inhale and track them down, there was obviously more than one, through scent, but the damn mist was too overpowering even for him.

 _They had taken Dean right from underneath him_. They had distracted him with one of their members and let the others come in and snatch him away from him.

Benny crashed through the foliage, movement jerky and uncoordinated. He'd never been this clumsy in his life. But he couldn’t think about anything other than losing Dean. He'd been so stupid. _What had he been thinking_? He had left Dean, as an _eight year old boy_ , alone in the bush as he fell into their little trap. The trap was a classic, one only a dumbass could fall for. And now Dean was taken because of him.

Dean could be dead.

Benny's shoulder accidentally slammed into a tree, but he completely ignored the harsh jolt of pain. He was panting as the cold fear kept pulsing in him without any organ working. Turning at a quick angle, the vampire was barely able to keep his footing. The dragging marks were disappearing, and the only saving grace for Benny's sanity was that there was no blood trails. _Did pure human souls even bleed_?

Benny held on to that tiny string of control not to break out his second set of teeth. What could they even do? The thing’s hide had been impenetrable. Benny might as well latch his teeth onto some hunter’s leg and stay still in wait for the machete to come for what good it might do him.

As the trail indicators started getting more and more infrequent, so did rational thought. _What were they doing to Dean right now_? Did they start to dig into him too tiny body? Had they started to engulf his soul, _him_? What were they? Benny frantically tried to sort out what kind of species it was. Nothing he could conjure up had the body of a dark skinned woman and a canine skull for a head. If he couldn’t figure out what it was, how was he was supposed to kill it?

Why did the being just stand there as Benny tried to decapitate it? _He didn’t get it_. Why not just kill Benny and run away with Dean?

Benny’s throat almost closed such at his last thought, he might not even need to know what the monster was, for it’d be too late. The vampire momentarily stumbled over a root that sprung forth from the ground, and his vocal cords were able to work together long enough to shout out another low and guttural, “ _Dean_!”

He didn’t expect any reply, but all of a sudden his hopes soared when a feeble voice in the distance shrieked, “ _Benny_!” Then another scream, but this one nameless.

They were to his left, and Benny nearly cut his own damn head off when he twisted directions. He barreled through the foliage when _thank God_ he could see them. Pale, inhumanly sprinting figures popped up every few seconds through the trees in front of Benny. A little tawny head showed up every seconds along with them.

Benny thought his feet were going to snap. Sweat was pouring into his eyes, but just like all the other pain, he ignored it. He leaped over a log and was running again as soon as the tips of his shoes touched the ground. He was gaining on them, and a little bud of ‘everything might just be okay’ began budding, because he could see Dean was alive.

He was only two yards away from the beings when he plucked up a heavy branch hanging limply from a tree and hurled it at one of the figures. It hadn’t seen the wood coming, so it tumbled to the ground when the branch struck the back of its head. Benny almost expected the skull to pop off, but it stayed firmly in place on the skinny neck.

Skidding to a stop in front of the body, Benny wanted to double over and heave.

The others noticed immediately when one of its pack had fallen and stopped in their tracks. One of the bastards was holding a sobbing and kicking Dean, its boney hand over his mouth. It was clutching the boy close and intimate to its naked chest like a mother holding its child. The gleaming teeth of the skull, not canine this time, was only inches from Dean’s head, and any squirming might knock Dean right into its jaws.

Something in Benny felt like it was being stretched to its breaking point and wanted to reach out to Dean as he took in the shape of the boy. He was covered in dirt from almost head to toe that Benny could barely make out the freckles dusting his nose and cheeks. The boy had mucus and salty tears running down his face again even though Benny had promised Dean that he wouldn’t cry again today.

When Dean saw the vampire, his eyes widened and let out a muffled wail that sounded so close to ‘Benny’ while his arms thrashed as much as they could.

The one he had taken down --Benny got a sick burst of pleasure as he saw it was the same one he’d struck with his ax-- slowly rose up again, unfazed and non-aggressive. There were three of them in total, and Benny was screwed if they all decided to attack at once. Hell, he’d be down for the count if _one_ of them decided to become violent.

Three skulls swerved to stare at Benny with the bottomless pits in their empty eye sockets; one canine, one avian, and one feline --the one holding Dean closer than ever now.

Then Benny realized what they were.

 _Borderwalkers_.

He had never seen any in Purgatory before, but he guessed there was a first for everything. “Shit,” the vampire couldn’t help but mutter. The creatures didn’t move or react, just continued watching him. Now his blade and his teeth were completely useless at the moment, borderwalkers were indestructible to normal weapons. He wouldn’t be able to do wound them unless he had some miraculous obsidian knives on him.

Benny wanted to gnaw on something in frustration as they were ever persistent in their staring contest. Without obsidian there was only way to kill a borderwalker. He needed to gets its guard down, bring it back to humanity, before he could use normal weapons on it.

 _Shit_.

Benny’s stomach --or lungs or heart who the hell knew-- leaped into his throat as the creatures actually moved. The beings seemed to have enough of him and started to _turn_ away from him. _They were going to turn away_.

“Please!” he begged.

The borderwalkers became motionless, curious.

The vamp made eye contact with Dean for a split second, but the little hunter understood perfectly enough. He slowly ceased his struggling, but he couldn’t hold back the sobs.

“He’s just a kid!” he rasped. “He’s _my_ family,” Benny’s hands started shaking against his own will. He looked down at his weapon before snapping his head back up. “I don’t want no trouble, look,” Benny was taking a huge risk. He very slowly crouched to the ground, the skull’s tilted, and gingerly placed his weapon on the ground. “I mean no harm no more.” And he slowly got back up.

The borderwalker didn’t loosen its hold on a Dean.

Benny gulped. What would tie a monster down back to its humanity? What had brought Benny back from the temptation of just saying ‘screw it’ and becoming the thing that people warned their children about at nights? Well, for him it had been Dean, hadn’t it? So what was Dean to him?

But the whole point of this was to get their thoughts off of Dean and whatever they wanted to do with him. “Your family!” Benny tried. Family seemed like a good start. “You’re spouses, what do you think’s’goin’ on in their heads right now, probably seein’ what your doin’ right now?”

Deep rumbling that made the short hair on the back of his neck stand up was the only response. If anything, Benny had just made it worse. Yeah, because he was an _idiot_. He was really going to get him and Dean killed if he kept up with all this shit.

He glanced at Dean as the beings started turning around again. The boy’s eyes widened as he tried another useless attempt to escape.

The vampire’s mind was jumping from thought to idea. Over his dead body he’d lose Dean again. What did monsters really want?

“Food!”

They borderwalkers paused again.

Benny was going to lose the ability to talk soon. Vomit was going to replace the words. “Yeah, yeah,” Benny encouraged, “That’s right, food! We all want food right?”

The hyena-like laughs were much softer this time as they turned to glance amongst each other. One stepped closer to Benny, who tried his best not to shy away or make any sharp, sudden movements.

“I mean real food,” Benny added nervously. He held out his hands, palms forward as if to ward them off. “Like what we ate before we came to this hell hole.” The borderwalkers’ bodies seemed to lean closer to the vampire, and now Benny just needed to expand the idea in detail.

But what did they eat when they were alive? When did they die? Benny surely didn’t have any Cool Ranch Doritos when he’d been turned. He racked his brain for the mythology he’d been looking into when he had first come upon the borderwalker name. It was a Western creature, yes, yes. Benny glanced at all their darker colored skins.

Shit. Aztec mythology.

At least, he hoped.

“Remember the maize in your fields?” Benny’s body was too tense to relax, and the beings jerked back in what seemed to be surprise. That must be good, right? The one holding Dean relaxed its grip slightly, and Dean looked _so relieved._ “All the beans an’ squash,” _he knew he should have paid attention in culture studies_. “All that abundant honey lookin’ like golden liquid in their jars. The delicious rabbit meat, right?”

The laughing grew louder, and if Benny wasn’t crazy, it might be because they were encouraging him. But Benny didn’t have any clue to what else they would eat. He was screwed. As the vampire tried to judge if he could just snatch Dean and run, an idea came to him.

“Your children!” It was blurted out, rushed and desperate.

The laughing suddenly stopped.

A scratchy and tortured wail came from the canine-skulled borderwalker, while the third one swung their skull head around to look between each other. The one holding Dean jerked again.

Benny could feel the sweat start dripping down his back. His instincts yelled at him to pick up his blade and strike while the howling one was weak, but he didn’t know how deep it would go. What if it wasn’t enough?

“You had a child,” Benny turned to the wailing monster. The jaw of the canine skill hung down like the joint keeping it together had broken, making noises that seemed to jab right into Benny’s skull. The vampire nodded. “You _had_ a child. What happened to ‘em?” He remembered reading about this. Benny remembered sitting down and thinking just how bad these creatures had had it. He remembered reading that Borderwalkers are made from the agonizing deaths of the Aztec women, from emotional or physical.

“They died before you did,” Benny ventured and he was rewarded when the creature’s hands clutched its opposite shoulder as all the other beings watched. The avian borderwalker was shaking its head and began pacing in place.

“Did they starve?” Benny continued digging. “Were you livin’ on the streets and couldn’t afford to feed ‘em?” The borderwalker had quieted its howling, giving him only soft wails to work on. Benny took a deep breath and guessed. “Died in childbirth?”

The thing fell to its bony knees, shaking, and the vampire knew it wasn’t going to get back up any time soon. Benny turned his attentions on the feline borderwalker holding Dean. It was quivering, affected. But considering it was still standing, that hadn’t been its case. He studied the way it clutched to Dean, and his eyes narrowed in on the hand still covering Dean’s mouth. Benny had already found them, there was no reason to keep Dean’s mouth shut.

The vampire’s mouth opened into a small ‘o’.

He could almost see it. A terrified, so horribly terrified, mother gripping her child close to her chest in a dusty alleyway with one hand over its mouth, trying to quiet its cries. It was such a miserable end, and Benny was going to be sick if he kept on thinking about it.

“They were slaughtered,” he said, “you tried to keep the kid quiet, but, oh, they still heard. They still found you. They killed your baby before killin’ you. Or maybe they killed you after they did something so, so horrible.”

Whatever Benny had done, it made all hell break lose. A scream of some sort of bird of prey shattered through the tense atmosphere.

The borderwalker that supposedly died in childbirth forwards and began writhing on the forest ground while the one holding Dean relinquished its hold when it lurched backwards. Dean dropped to the floor and landed with a soft thump on his arms and knees like a cat. The boy wasted no time as he immediately scrambled up and leapt for the bushes.

Benny sprang into action. He went for the feline borderwalker that had had held -- _touched_ \-- Dean. As soon as he got close, his fingers splayed and grabbed the bony, thin neck of the creature, feeling an animalistic joy at how the bones finally gave away and snapped under the pressure. Once the tormented creatures had been reminded of their humanity, so were their bodies. Benny flung the creature away from the bushes where Dean hid. The body flew back and collapsed.

Benny wasn’t surprised when it tried desperately to get back up. A snapped neck just didn’t do the right amount of damage these days. Before the borderwalker could even get on its knees, Benny swung the double sided ax at the head.

He always knew playing baseball when he was alive and smaller would pay out.

Whatever had been attaching the skull head to the neck gave easily away. The feline skull popped off with a crack and flew into the trees, a lot like a baseball actually. The body crumbled to the ground and deflated, as if it didn’t have any blood in it at all. Like the only thing that had been holding it up was the monster’s wounded spirit.

Benny turned around. The borderwalker writhing on the ground was being pulled at by its unaffected bird friend. The inhumanly long fingers pulled at the border walker’s arms, trying to get it up and going, and making chuffing noises.

If the creature wasn’t effected at all by the talk of children, he couldn’t begin guessing what had caused its anguished death. It was pissed now anyways, and wouldn’t stand around and wait patiently for Benny to figure it out.

‘Pissed and indestructible’ he reminded himself.

The being seemed to have read Benny’s thoughts, because it suddenly stopped trying to haul its friend and stared at Benny with those eye-less sockets. It stood up slowly and let out a growl.

The vampire stared back, not even daring to glance at Dean’s direction in case it tipped it off on Dean’s escape. They had wanted him in the first place, and it could still want him now.

 _He was so screwed_.

The thing abandoned its pack member and stepped over its fallen body. It held out its hands like claws and it hissed this time, like a rattler.

Benny was beyond screwed.

His leg hand made a sweeping motion on the ground, poking at the leaves on the ground and trying to find something to work with. What were the chances that he’d find an obsidian knife lying around in Purgatory?

The borderwalker’s gaze snapped down at the movement, and its hiss turned warbled. It ran for Benny then. He could barely keep up with the movement. It was fast. But luckily, so was Benny.

The vampire dove to the right and grunted when his arms met dirt and rocks. He scrambled to get back up on his hands and knees, but the borderwalker grappled at his ankle, its elongated hand wrapping completely around it, and _tugged_.

Benny practically was dragged like a ragdoll, spitting and cussing as dirt flew into his mouth, before his hands caught on a breached tree root. He dug into the dirt with his hands, loosing his ax in the process, to get leverage and to make it harder for the creature to drag him away. He furiously kicked, and got lucky when his shoe came off and it lost its grip. Benny let out a harsh breath as he managed to dig the tips of his feet into the ground and lunged forwards. He rushed to get back up again, grabbing at the rocks embedded in the ground for help to pull him up. He was just able to get his near a tree when his foot caught in a same damn winding root his hands had. The root seemed to come alive, unsnarling him and jerking him back. Benny let out a shout of pain, and blithely wondered if there had really been a popping noise, or it was just his imagination.

At his shout there was a whimpering that definitely didn’t come from a borderwalker or the vampire himself. It was Dean.

‘ _Please don’t scream, Dean_ ’. Benny practically prayed as he gritted his teeth. His second pair of chompers were itching to fall down, if not to tear into flesh than to give him some false sense of bravado. He quickly got up from his vulnerable position and managed to get his back to a tree. ‘ _Whatever happens, please don’t scream out_.’

The being was a few meters in front of him, starting to crouch low. It stooped over his slippedboot with its beaked skull nuzzling the sole. Like it was smelling it.

What the _hell_ , birds didn’t even have proper _nostrils_.

The shoe didn’t hold its attention forever, and the borderwalker lift up his head. It took its precious time now and stepped forward leisurely. It had to be eight feet away from Benny. One leap and it could be at his throat.

Six feet away from Benny. It knew he was stuck. That sadistic bastard, it was purposely dragging things out, like it enjoyed its prey to know that it couldn’t escape. Maybe because that’s how it had died too.

Benny was beginning to panic, no need to breathe put rasping for breath, as he desperately searched for a weapon to use, _anything_. His hand slipped into his pocket and covered something small and smooth. There was nothing useful _anywhere_. Nothing but the stone.

His palm convulsed against Dean’s little river rock. The cool touch seemed to jerk a too hopeful thought out of him.

 _The damn rock_. Could it possibly be made out of…?

The vampire fumbled to get his hand out of his pocket.

Five feet.

He opened his palm. The glossy black stone glinted in his hand. Should he risk it?

Four feet.

Oh, why the hell not.

With a nervous glance at the looming figure, Benny gripped the rock carefully. The borderwalker opened its beak above him.

 _Three feet_.

Benny smashed his hand down on one of the grey rocks with the force he used in desperate fights. He felt hear the rock shattering in his hands, and partly into his hand.

The borderwalker went for Benny’s throat.

 _Zero feet_.

The vampire jerked his bleeding hand up, jagged point of the rock facing out, and swung his arm in an arc where he thought the thing’s neck should be. He squeezed his eyes shut --not the best battle tactic, he will admit-- waiting for the sharp, inevitable shot of agony before his head would fall off. For the third time.

But it all got quiet, and there was a moment of tense silence. The silence that happened after an explosive fight; when the world and everyone was trying to squint past the dust and see who got who. The silence that dwarfed every other sound and swallowed it.

There was an inhuman screech of what could only be pain.

Benny’s closed eyes flew open.

The borderwalker was still crouching above him, hands covering up a ragged gap above its collarbone. There was no blood dripping out of the wound, no blood to drip down onto Benny and his clothes, and no blood to obstruct the view of what was underneath the wound. It was squirming muscles and a bone barely peeking out. The rock had cut nicely into the skin.

So the rock had been obsidian.

Well, wasn’t that just coincidental.

The visible muscles under the skin vibrated and quivered as the creature shrieked. It stumbled backwards.

Benny clutched the rock into his cut up palm. He couldn’t feel the sting, too busy trying to lurch his foot out of the roots grasp. The wound would heal within a matter of hours anyways. Benny’s head if cut off, on the other hand, couldn’t grow back.

He wanted to cry in relief once he got his foot out of the tangled mess, and he stood shakily to his feet. The borderwalker fell on its ass, bemoaning to itself about its wounds. It looked like one measly cut wouldn’t do. The vampire didn’t waste dawdle around like the creatures had. In the next second he was there over the monster and slicing through the skin of its neck with the obsidian stone. It cut as easy a spoon through room temperature ice cream.

The skull looked up at him with those unnerving eye-less sockets once last time before it bent backwards and tumbled to the ground. And it was just that now, a skull of a large predatory bird.

Benny looked at the last borderwalker, the canine one. It was still lying on the ground as pitifully as it had been a minute before. His eyes sharpened in anger as the fear melted away. These things had attacked him, taken Dean away, and tried to kill them. He wanted them to suffer, not just take one slice to the head and be done with living. But they were dangerous, and who knew, maybe the borderwalker could push back its feelings of humanity and spring up any minute. Benny had to kill it _now_.

He glanced at the rock in his hands. His blood had gotten all over it, beading on the jagged surface. He didn't need it to kill the creature, and he didn't know if it would cut as nicely as it had for the bird bastard. Benny looked down at his only, shoed foot. Nodding, the vampire lifted his foot and brought it down lightly on the skull. The creature didn't react, only twitched now and then. He idly wondered if there was a brain in there. Looked like he was about to find out.

He pressed down, hard.

The bones gave away surprisingly easy. Benny watched the tiny spider web like cracks appear in the skull before the bone broke and caved in on itself. The whole body went limp. There wasn't any gooey brains or fluid in the head.

As the adrenaline faded, he started to feel the cutting sting in his palm, and Benny wiped the gathering blood on his black pants. It should seal up soon, and it was starting to get dark.

"Benny?"

His head snapped towards the bushes wildly, searching. Dean had crawled out halfway, shaking like a tree in a windstorm. There were no tears in his eyes or running down his face this time. Just pure, undiluted terror. His green shirt had been scratched up by the branches and the shirt had torn a little on his left shoulder.

A tear that was _glowing._

Benny moved forward and tripped on the body before getting enough smart to step over it. Dean was glowing again, and he was grabbing at his shoulder, and his face was scrunching up like it hurt and--

And Dean was injured.

"Dean, _come ‘ere_ ," Benny demanded frantically, his voice drenched in worry. He hurriedly pocketed the rock, not wanting Dean to see his blood.

They met each other halfway with both of them running towards each other like lunatics. Benny scooped up the little hunter as soon he could reach him. Before he knew it, he was falling to his knees and clutching Dean to his chest, much like the borderwalkers had. The vampire tried not to squeeze to tight but Dean was here and alive in front of him.

He'd been almost snatched away from him.

Little skinny arms tried wrap themselves around Benny's neck, and Dean finally letting small sobs escape his chest. They weren’t big, wet sobs like they before, just small whimpers. Like Dean was too tired and scared to even cry properly. There was no pounding heart rate with the boy either, but it felt like Benny was holding a bag of angry bees; swarming. That was Dean’s soul squirming.

"Dean," With one syllabic name Benny was able to pour out all his emotions. All the fear, panic, anger, and desperation, to which Dean answered by clinging tighter. But then he remembered the wound, and Benny's breathing hitched as he forced himself to stop hugging the boy and push him back, much to Dean's ignored protest.

Benny carefully examined the injury. The shirt had torn, and the soft flesh under it had split apart just a little. The light Benny had seen before was weakly shimmering through the torn skin, like it was trying to escape from Dean's body.

He let out a big breath of relief. It was just a scratch, really, from the branches. He'd be okay. Hopefully. "It’s nothin'," Benny repeated out loud, and Dean deflated as if he had thought the wound was fatal. He very lightly patted the boy's other shoulder, trying to figure out if he was attempting to reassure Dean or himself. "You're gonna be okay." It was meant to sound strong and heartening, but Benny's voice betrayed him and it cracked.

Dean looked at him, sniffled once, and bestowed upon Benny probably one of the most hopeless things he had ever heard. "I thought you were going to leave me all alone. That you would be... be gone forever." The tears weren't welling up in just Dean's eyes, the vampire could feel the telltale signs of stinging in his.

Dead. That was the word Dean was looking for. He thought Benny would have died. “S’alright, brother. I can never let you down, so I can never die when you don’t want me to.” He took another deep breath, trying to calm down, and growled, “I’m gonna get you home.” It was a promise, one exactly like the one Dean had made to him by the riverside.

The little hunter didn’t look comforted, he looked strangely confused. Dean shot out his hands to grip at Benny’s shoulders, and he suddenly looked very, very scared. “No, we can’t go home.” The boy was getting a panicked, rushed look in his eyes like a dear in the headlights. His little hands squeezed as hard as they could to Benny. “I… No, we _can’t.”_

“Why, what’s goin’ on?” Benny was still reeling in what had happened a minute ago, he wasn’t ready for this drastic of subject change. What did he mean they couldn’t get back home? It’s been what they’ve been talking about this entire time in Purgatory. The vampire tried to calm the boy down, tried patting his shoulders and looking for any more injuries, just in case. Was Dean going into shock? Could you get shock from witnessing so horrific? People could --people did, right? He thought he could remember some procedural cop show talking about it. Was Dean in shock?

The boy’s knees were wobbling, and so was Benny’s sense of security. “Oh, Benny,” the boy bewailed as his hands started to shake too. “Benny, Benny, _Benny_ , we can’t go back. I can’t go back.”

“Dean, look at me,” he urged. He didn’t want to shake the boy or startle him in case it would spook him further. Maybe he wasn’t going into shock, maybe it was just the stress getting to the boy, and this attack was what tipped him off. Everyone rightfully freaked out now and again from the crippling stress.

After a certain numbers of monsters, physical or emotional, start trying to take you out, you start thinking you'll never get out of whatever situation you're in.

It was the same with Dean, everything must seem hopeless to him.

"No, we're gonna get out of here," Benny said it like it was written in stone. Hell, written on the Ten Commandments. "We're gonna get out an'--"

"You don't --you don't understand," the boy eyes looked like he was begging the vamp to understand. "I'm up there, Benny, _I remember now_. I can't, I'm--"

"Dean, you're not makin’ any sense. What do you mean you're up there? You said you, you _died_ , and now you're here," Benny said fervently as he tried to understand, he really was. "You can't be in two realms at once, brother."

"No, no, no," the boy chanted. He took his eyes off Benny and started glancing around them like a frightened, cornered animal. "The bad thing, the black thing is up there, alone. If I, if I go back up, I'll kill me." Dean's voice squeaked on the last words, and Benny was getting awfully terrified.

" _Dean_ ," Benny said firmly as he tried to get Dean to look him in the eyes. He gripped down on the boy's shoulders, a small squeeze really, to attempt in reeling him back where he belonged. "What evil thing? _Tell me_." Benny was beginning to sound half-panicked himself, and for a good reason. So maybe it wasn’t the stress, and it really was shock. _How did you treat a shock patient?_

Dean looked at him all right and proper, and his eyes cleared for a second to blurt out, "I can’t go b-back up, I'm a demon up there." Tears that had been starting to pool up threatened to fall, but the boy held them back. He watched Benny for his reaction with eyes that looked scared Benny was going to reject him. The look was too old for a boy.

Dean's little hands were relaxing his grip on the coat. Like he was letting go of his coat so Dean could run if Benny lashed out at him.

Or maybe he thought the vampire was going to run, and was making it easier for Benny to get away.

It took a while to really register what Dean was trying to get across, but when it did… _Boy, when it did_. Benny's first course of action was denial. He was real good at it. "Dean, you must be mistaken," he gawked. "'Cause that's the silliest thing I've ever--"

He was cut off when a Dean shook his head and whispered, "No, I... I'm, it's true."

The boy was just trying to pull his tail. "Humans like you can't just become demons all of a sudden," Benny said slowly, uncomfortably aware at how grave Dean was becoming. "Not unless you went off and made a -- _Dean Winchester_ so help me, if you went off and made another deal--"

Dean shook his head harder and made an angry, frustrated noise. He tilted his head up and hiccuped. "I did-didn't! The Mark did! I..." Eyes zeroed in on the top of the trees, and Dean's voice lost all its firmness, "... The Mark made me do it."

"The mark? The hell is that?" Benny cussed.

"I..." The eight year old's face scrunched up. "I can't, I don't know. But it's bad." He looked at Benny then, and the look in the green eyes gave him chills. Dean began rubbing his right arm as he choked out, "It's really bad."

Benny gulped, and the boy shivered. "So you're a demon up there?" The words felt false on his tongue because he didn’t really believe him. It felt like he was just amusing the kid by pretended to agree. Dean Winchester was, and would always be, one hundred percent human.

"Yeah," the boy breathed, and a barrier inside the kid seemed to crack open. A single tear ran down his cheek, and Dean let go of Benny to angrily scrub at it. "I can't go back now, he's up there, and, and know I'm up there and--" the sentences were getting incoherent and garbled. "--I'll be found and twisted around too, Benny _I don't wanna be all gone_ , I can't--"

"But _how_ ," Benny sounding less than an inch from begging. He was on the cold, damp ground, on his knees, and he just wanted to get it. This one hunter had so many secrets, and he was just struggling with trying to keep up with them. " _How_ did this happen? Please, just tell me."

"I told you!" Dean cried. "The Mark! I, I _died_ , and the Mark, the Mark--" a great big hiccup jolted the boy's body. Dean's breathing began getting erratic. Dean stopped trying to hold back the tears.

The vampire's words were rushed as he gestured upwards. "The sky," he tensed. "The light, the blue and black haze, b‘fore you told me that was you. Was the black smoke…?" His voice trailed off, not wanting to understand this time. Dean had bled light, used the light to defend himself, and had fallen from a great big cloud of light. That was soul, not light, like Dean had been trying to tell him earlier.

As a Dean was reduced quickly into hiccup hysterics, he couldn't exactly answer. His body just wouldn't let him speak. But the frightened look that was stuck on Dean's face answered his question plenty. The black was what had been swallowing up Dean’s soul. Dean had said he was both clouds. Could the black have been..? Oh shit.

Puzzle pieces were doing more than just connecting. For once, Benny could sort of make out the big picture. The questions 'how' and 'why' were still unanswered, but now Benny knew 'what'.

The vampire sucked in a breath through his teeth. Demon smoke had been swallowing up Dean Winchester. Somehow his hunter had gotten himself in quite a situation up there. A situation that led to him to becoming a creature that was all things wrong with humanity. Now there was a demon up on Earth with the looks of a man whose last name was Winchester.

What a mighty time Sam and Castiel must be having. Benny watched at the crying boy and was guilty to feel a tiny bit of relief. He had lucked out, he had the real Dean Winchester down here right with him while the other two got a demon Dean Winchester. It scared him to think about what would have happened if Benny had gotten the demon version.

"So I--" another hiccup "--can't go back," the boy tried to suck in the snot that had started to fall down his face again. He was failing so hard on trying to keep it in. "He will find me."

Yes, this tiny eight year old was the real Dean, and he was crying his little eyes out. "Oh, _brother_ ," Benny breathed with as much feeling as he possibly could.

The little hunter must have heard something special in the two words, because suddenly the vampire got an armful of a crying Dean Winchester. The boy collapsed forward into his arms, wrapped his arms around his neck again, and let out the sobs into his shoulder. Words were muffled by the thick fabric of his coat, but Benny could easily pick up words like 'sorry" and 'scared'.

Benny didn't even hesitate. He wrapped his arms around the shaking, little figure. "Oh, _frère_ ," he repeated, suddenly just as overcome with feeling as Dean had been. " _Petit faon_."

Dean, the man with one of the most loyal and pure personalities he'd ever known, a demon. He wasn't even sure he could ever digest that fully.

The vampire tucked the little boy close to him and rested his scruffy chin on Dean's soft tawny hair. He stared at the ongoing forest ahead of him as he held Dean through his crying. The sky was getting dark as the mist drew away. They'd had been through so much, and it had only been one, measly day. Dean had been almost killed two times, which was normal for all the residents living in this hellhole, but to a child, it was hell.

All of this had been all in one day.

Desperately trying to get rid of the stinging feeling in the corner of his eyes, Benny wasn't exactly in the best shape either.

 _This hunter_.

"Dean," Benny squeezed his eyes tight, not knowing what to say.

The boy continued to wail in his arms and there was nothing Benny could do. Had he even helped at all since Dean returned? The vamp had nothing, knew nothing. He didn't know anything other than the fact that he was making everything worse.

What could he even do, though?

The silence in the air became so thick that Benny felt like he couldn't inhale. Or maybe that was just his throat restricting. He just couldn't do anything right, could he? He couldn't fit into Earth, and he couldn't help now with whatever was happening to Dean Winchester.

 _’Couldn’t do anything right_ ’ he reapted to himself.

And something in Benny snapped.

His eyes flew open. "You're gonna get home," he said it rather heatedly, his voice hardening. "And he -it-- will never find you. I'll be sure of that."

The boy didn't stop crying and wiping the tears on Benny's coat, but that was okay because the vampire continued. "We're gonna find the portal, get topside, an' move out of America. Out of the hemisphere, if we have to. But until then we'll fine a little place in Canada." Maybe if he said it more fiercely, he'll start believing it too.

He tucked the bundle of Dean Winchester closer under his chin in a very protective manner. Not having a physical body, it was a good thing the boy didn't need to breathe either. The boy’s trembling was slowly but surely stopping, but his bawling was still going strong. “We’re gonna buy a little house in a neighborhood,” Benny added, ignoring the wet tear to side down his own cheek. “It’ll have a nice fence so we feel like there’ll be privacy, an’ maybe even a trampoline. You’ll be put into a school if you wanna, an’ I’ll find a restaurant of some sort to work in. ‘Cause Dean Winchester, you deserve _so_ much more.” His eyes glanced up at the black sky. It was starless.

Benny had had enough, but more importantly, this boy had had enough. Fate couldn’t possibly mess him up anymore. Benny would make sure of that. This time he wouldn’t leave Dean’s side, wouldn’t allow the hunter to push him away. He’d figure out some way to get blood without hurting anyone, and he wouldn’t give up this time. Because Dean would need him more than ever.

“We’ll do all the things you couldn’t do, all the stuff I can’t r’member doin’.” It all seemed so doable all of a sudden. He’d take Dean to the amusement park on days where the sun wasn’t shining so strong. They’d go to the movie theaters, and Benny would buy noise cancelling ear plugs to dim to sound. Benny would take him to candy shops, let him have nice, normal playdates.

And he’d crawl through Hell to buy him that cowboy toy.

They could do all of this. They could live in a little apartment until Benny cashed in some loans to buy a little house. That was good, they’d give themselves time to heal. Time for Benny to coordinate how to get his meals and how to blend in with humanity again. Time for Dean to remember everything and reorganize his head.

“Our house will me small an’ have a tiny yard,” Benny continued, on a roll now. “Don’t you worry, brother, we’ll have plenty of space for you to run ‘bout and play.” The vampire tried to run his hand reassuringly down and up the boy’s back. His mind had zeroed in on all the possibilities, and when they went topside -- _when_ \--, then nothing would screw them over. Everything would fall into place more neatly than Dean’s secret puzzle.

Dean was trying to calm down, but he wasn’t there quiet yet. The boy was huffing and still hiccupping while Benny made all these promises. “We’ll get you that Yorkie dog,” he mentioned as a last resort.

And it worked.

The little child in his arms let in a shaky and wet breath, and he pressed his face into Benny’s shoulder. “Caden?” it was barely more than a whisper, and it was so sad desperate that it made Benny all that more determined.

“Yeah,” he agreed, almost wistfully. “Caden.”

The thought of the tiny Yorkie puppy seemed to have a calming effect on the little hunter. Dean took a few moments to relearn how to breathe, his fists clenching and unclenching Benny’s coat. But he wasn’t blubbing and sobbing anymore. It took a while before Dean seemed ready to speak, and he pulled away from Benny’s shoulder. “What,” a pause, “What color will his col-collar be?”

The boy’s face was all blotchy and red, eyes all puffed up. Dean was too embarrass to meet the vampire’s face, his eyes trailing down as he inhaled a deep breath of the fresh night air. The boy began wriggling around, and Benny got the hint. He unwrapped his arms from around Dean, shifting so he sitting on his ass and not on his knees, and Dean immediately crawled into his lap. Dean plopped back down so that his back was to Benny. His whole body seemed to sag into the vampire, tired and limp.

“I was thinkin’ green. A green collar,” Benny voice whispered. He could see it now, Dean and him giving the little pup walks through the neighborhood. They’d casually wave to the neighbors and snicker at them as the pasted. The boy would carry that dog everywhere and show him off to everyone. The vampire briefly thought about how Sam would react to seeing how small his older brother was now, but he pushed that out of his head. Walking down that thought train would lead to questions Benny didn’t want to answer; like if the other half of the co-dependent brother relationship would take Dean away from him.

He just wanted to believe, just for a night, that it was just him and tator tot sized Dean Winchester.

Dean nodded in his lap before tilting his head up to stare at the sky with Benny. “I… I like that idea,” the child approved, his voice exhausted. He bobbed his head, and his hair began tickling Benny’s sensitive nose. “He’ll be the best puppy, and we’ll train him to stay by our sides without a leash.” Dean’s voice had begun getting quieter. “We’ll need to potty train him quickly so he doesn’t pee all the house.”

Dean approved of Benny’s domestic ramblings. It warmed him, knowing that all his wishful ramblings hadn’t been one-sided. So it was settled then. They’d get a house and a dog and figure it all out. Just the two of them against the world.

“That dog will be mighty smart,” Benny nodded along. They stopped talking after that and left the conversation drift off. Talking wasn’t needed anymore as they both muddled through their thoughts.

Benny took a small recollection of the entire day, surprised at just how much they’ve done. And it had been less than twenty-four hours. Imagine what could happen in fourth-eight hours. Unless it was getting a way out of Purgatory, he didn’t want to figure it out.

He didn’t know how long they sat there in the night, oblivious to all things around them, as they watched the star-less night sky. Benny just knew that there was nothing around to threaten them, just silence.

They stayed in that position for a while, long after they got cricks in their necks.

 

 

Benny woke up slowly. First it started with a nagging feeling that he was going to be in danger if he kept still for much longer, but then that faded because exhaustion had something more important to say.

Who knows how much longer, Benny opened his eyes and groaned as he placed one of his arms over the,. It wasn't sunny --it was never sunny in Purgatory-- but the light was almost irritating today. Perhaps because he was just tired so every little beam of light was like a sun pounding down on his skull. Just like hangovers used to feel like.

When he finally got the courage to remove his arm, he blinked as light filtered back into his eyelids and he was forced to wake up more permanently. Benny took a survey of his area. Well, as much as he could in his current position. It turned out that he was laying down, sprawled out on the ground and head resting against a large, fallen log. It shouldn’t have been comfortable, but the dirt was surprisingly soft today, and the moss was plentiful in this spot.

He tried to get up, but realized that one fourth of his body was being trapped under by another, much smaller, one. Benny pulled up his head to see tiny Dean sprawled out upon him and was resting his dirty head against Benny's arm. At one point in the night he had lost his coat because the vampire's arm was coat-less and Dean was using Benny's elbow as a pillow.

The boy was even snoring. It was the soft kind of snoring though, and not the kind that his grandfather used to do every night. The kind where it could burst your eardrums from twelve feet away. It was a quiet, snuffling one that kids made.

Benny's head thunked back down on the log --and his bundled up coat, that’s where it had gone; an impromptu pillow for him-- and stared back up at the trees. The leaves swayed in the wind like helpless clothes on a line, and the rustling sound they made was almost peaceful.

Mind wandering, Benny slowly, very slowly, recollected yesterday's events. He skipped past all the traumatizing stuff and right to the part where he had promised Dean that they'd get out of Purgatory and move straight into a little house in the suburb. The vampire didn't know if he wanted to lower his head in shame for the naïve thoughts or just let himself _hope_ for a chance.

Hope that maybe everything will go alright and the portal will react with Dean again. Hope that somehow Dean can get Benny back to his old body. Hope that Dean wouldn't need his current body --which Benny stubbornly didn't think about. Later, when he bring the… problem… up when he was ready to wallow in angst again-- and he'd just materialize with his own brand new kid's body.

His mind hummed pleasantly as he thought about all the things he and Dean would do, and dammit, Benny was contented.

He thought about how they'd get a nice house with respectful neighbors who didn't push. They'd have a nice backyard with a swing set for Dean and maybe some woods in the back depending on how big the property was. Dean could go back to school and go to _college_ this time, or whatever Dean Winchester wanted to do that didn't involve hunting every week. Maybe when Dean got older they would pick hunting up again, but as long as the little hunter was under eighteen, Benny would forbid him from it.

And didn't that thought just make him chuckle. Benny imagined a petulant, teenager Dean at the age of fourteen with a sawed off shot gun in one hand and a jar of salt in the other complaining, " _Benny, I'm fourteen, I’m practically an adult_!" before surely adding something about being now _technically_ in his forties. Benny would just have to make sure to buy him that Yorkie puppy then. Can't go hunting all the time when you have a little dog depending on you for its meals.

There was a stirring at his side and Benny watched as Dean slowly woke up. The sleepy kid took much longer to wake up then Benny. First he opened his eyes to look around him, just like Benny had, before shutting his eyes and dozing for a good ten minutes.

It was fine though because Benny took that time to think about all the healthy things he'd have to fix for Dean --growing boys needed lots of healthy things in a large amount-- and because he didn't have a blood flow, his arm never fell asleep.

Benny was just beginning to think about creative healthy smoothies when Dean rolled off him like a blob of limp child. Dean smacked face first into the dirt, stayed there for a good few seconds, and then shot up on his arms. " _Ew_ ," Dean furiously spat out the dirt in his mouth and sat up, very unsteadily at first, to wipe at his mouth. The boy looked dazed as he looked around, but then his gaze landed on Benny and he smiled, "Goodmorning, Benny."

The vampire resisted the urge to scoop up the hunter and tickle him. Or at least give him a bath to wash of all that dirt. And wasn't those thoughts so domestic. It nearly pained him, cause to Benny, right now at this moment, all those silly domestic thought had a chance to actually happen. Because they were Benny and Dean Winchester, and if anyone could break the rules and put them back together their own way, it was them.

As Dean shuffled away from him to attempt to wipe off some dirt on his pants without covering his companion in it too, Benny finally sat up. "How'ya feelin'?" Benny asked before a giant yawn came. He groped at the ground before he realized his ax was still a few meters away from them. And that the borderwalkers’ bodies were all gone except for the skulls. Well, at least a bird skull and the shattered canine one.

"I feel a little funny," Dean replied with instead of the usual and expected, 'good'.

Benny eyed the boy sharply. "What do ya mean 'funny'?" He asked suspiciously. The vampire checked the wound on Dean’s shoulder, and it had sealed up perfectly and healthily.

Dean had given up on dusting himself off and was wrapping a string from his shirt seams around his finger while a frown marred his face. "My arm feels weird."

Benny sat up straighter. "Dean," he said slowly, "you didn’t get hurt on your arm, right? Why would it be hurtin’?”

“I don’t know,” he said helpfully, rubbing his sore right arm. “It just does, it just hurts a little.”

Benny thought for a second, tilting his head to the side. His own legs ached a little after running that much yesterday, and his shoulder took a good hit from that tree. It was a dull aching, and maybe that’s what was happening to Dean. He’d been grabbed pretty roughly by the borderwalker, maybe he’s got a soul-deep bruise from it.

“It’s normal,” Benny smiled a tiny bit, glad to have figured it out, “I hurt too, don’t worry, it’ll fade.”

Dean looked pleased with his explanation and began standing up. It was so uncoordinated and the boy almost toppled over once. “Okay,” he grinned nice and wide, believing and trusting in Benny one hundred percent, before attempting to again fight off the clingy dust and dirt from his jeans. He looked curiously around again. “What are we gonna do today, Benny?”

The old vampire slowly got up on his heels before standing up. His knees made a popping noise, and both him and Dean stared at his knees. Benny looked up and pointed an accusatory finger at the boy, “Don’t you dare, brother.”

Dean ducked his head, but Benny could see his lips twitching. “I would never,” it was said so seriously that he would have believed the boy if he wasn’t watching him fighting that smile. “Old man,” Dean whispered it.

 _Tiny Dean was just so damned cute_. Benny stood straighter, “Well, _squirt_ \--” Dean’s head snapped up and he let out an insulted ‘hey’. “--we’re gonna get back on track today. Find the river and find the portal. Then we’re gonna go home.” The vampire reached down and grabbed his coat while Dean’s eyes widened.

“But, Benny,” all the humor and cheerfulness had instantly drained out of Dean’s voice, “I’m still up there doing--”

“You’re goin’ to show up on Earth just like you are now. We talked about this yesterday,” Benny interrupted, almost nervously as he put his arms through his coat’s sleeves. Dean couldn’t bring this up. His little picture of domesticity was going to topple down into the ashes and mud if Dean kept questioning Benny’s plan. He just needed to hang onto it for just a little bit longer, bask in it and think about it in case something went wrong.

Dean looked up at him with scared eyes. He swallowed and nodded slowly. “Just like now,” Dean repeated.

“You got it,” Benny pulled out the ultimate temptation for a Dean Winchester. “And we’re gonna immediately get you a double cheeseburger.”

He was relieved to see nervous eyes become more hopeful. They almost damn near sparkled. “A cheeseburger with a shake?”

“With a shake,” he agreed. Hell, with how happy the boy was with the prospect, he’d get the boy a cheeseburger every damn day.

Benny tried to brush off some of the dirt that had covered his backslide in a nice coating before moving onto shaking off his coat. Something in his pocket shook with the coat and his eyebrows drew together as he stuck his hand down in it. Benny near swore in amazement when his hands wrapped around the cold, obsidian stone with a Benny-made pointed edge. He had forgotten that he had stuck it back in his coat pocket.

He glanced at Dean, who was adjusting the Velcro on his Power Rangers tennis shoes, wondering if he should give the stone back to him now. His finger traced over the cracked edge of the stone. Dean probably wouldn’t want it now. Not only could it be a horrific reminder of what could have happened to him last night, but the rock was no longer a smooth and rounded river stone. Benny might as well keep it.

He looked around their little hide out and concentrated on finding the river again. The sound of rushing water was a welcomed sound. After locating it some distance away to their right, he carefully nudged Dean in the right direction. They’d get to the river and take the time to wash off their clothes and rest while waiting for them to dry. Then they could really get going.

Starting to walk towards their destination, Benny looked back to see if Dean was keeping up fine. Even after a long rest, the kid must be emotionally exhausted.

Dean was standing in the same spot instead, scowling down at his hand. He was squeezing the cloth of his shirt that was right over his heart.

“Dean?” Benny asked wearily, stopping.

The boy kept staring down at his own arm. “Benny,” he muttered. He scrunched up his nose. “I feel weird again.”

There was a strange twisting in Benny’s stomach as he murmured softly, “How does it feel weird?”

“Like,” Dean paused and took a deep breath. “Like a ghost is trying to grab my arm, it’s _weird_.”

Sucking in a deep breath of his own, Benny scratched at the back of his neck. Before he could panic that a vengeful spirit was attacking Dean, the old vampire realized that there were no ghosts down here. As soon as they were ganked, their souls went heavenwards. “Brother, I don’t know how to help you. Do you wanna stop an’ rest--” Benny’s mouth snapped shut.

Dean looked up at him, confusion and fear spreading in his eyes for the second time today. Then he turned his gaze back downwards, and they both watched the bright swirling light shine and escape through Dean’s right hand.

There was light coming out of Dean Winchester’s hand.

Purgatory seemed to freeze still. All at once the leaves stopped swishing in the slight breeze, and the sounds of predators stalking the woods were cut off into silence. There _wasn’t any noise_.

Benny thought it was him, that maybe the shock had him imagining things but _no_ , he couldn’t hear anything and nothing was moving. The old vampire nervously went back and forth between watching the suddenly stationary grass and leaves as his throat started clogging up. The river had stopped running in the distance.

The wind, there was no wind.

“Dean,” it came out whispered, and Benny’s voice honestly cracked. His fingers went limp and dropped his ax on the ground. “What’s going on?” He didn’t mean to sound so hopeless.

Dean Winchester was _glowing_. His arm was shining out light as if he had been wounded, but he wasn’t. There wasn’t an injury on him except for the tiny scratch on his _left_ shoulder. Dean put his other hand over his right hard, his tiny fist clenching.

The little hunter wasn’t in any better shape than his vampire companion was. Dread and fear were swirling in his eyes and the boy had begun trembling. The light underneath his skin was getting brighter. The tendrils of light that were escaping shot up with more force, and Dean yelped in terror.

Eyes looked at the vampire, who was helplessly staring back. His eyes didn’t match his body again. It was still too mature for the age his soul manifested as. “Benny! What’s happening?”

In one giant wave it hit Benny that he was standing around doing nothing. In a fraction of a second he was by Dean’s side, tossing the boy’s hand that was covering the light away. _Had Dean somehow been hurt?_ Why was it pouring out so quickly? Dean didn’t look any pain, so what _in the name of all things holy was happening_?

Benny was left staring at a smooth arm with no wounds or irregular bumps. The light was pouring out now, stronger now that the hand had been removed and _dribbling like water_ down Dean’s hand. The boy seized Benny’s arms and squeezed with strength that shouldn’t be possible for an eight year old. “ _Benny_.”

Dean’s voice was cracking, and the vampire bristled in distress when the voice abruptly had _layers_ to it. It wasn’t his normal tone anymore. It sounded like seven Dean’s were talking all at once and all over each other. His voice was high and low and in between and _what the hell was happening_. Benny’s eyes were hastily doing a sweep of Dean’s appearance, but he couldn’t find any damn _wounds_.

“It’s gonna be alright, _ne t'inquiète pas_ ,” Benny rushed out, tripping over his own words and mixing languages as he got down on his knees again to be eye-level with the boy. “It’s just some light! We’ll patch you up just fine! Just stay calm!”

Dean kept grabbing at his coat. He pulled furiously before letting go and pulling at another spot. Light began pouring out everywhere from the small child. The skin under his --his _everywhere_ \-- started shining, and Dean let out a cry. “ _Benny_ \--”

He wasn’t able to finish.

A sharp, piercing noise replaced Dean’s voice. The boy let go of Benny to put his hands over his mouth in horror, but even though his mouth was closed, the screeching wouldn’t let up.

 _It was like having asthma all over again_. He grabbed Dean’s shoulders and realized that Dean wasn’t trembling, his whole entire body was _vibrating_. “Dean! Dean! Look at me!” His hands were shaking the little shoulders.

Light was coming out of Dean’s mouth, and eyes, and yet Benny could only stare directly at him. The boy took his hands off his mouth and went back to grasping Benny’s coat. He was sobbing, tears flowing down his cheeks while Benny had to watch in horror as Dean’s skin started _fading_. It was like he was becoming completely transparent. Benny could make out the trees behind his head.

There were more screeches and the vampire fought the instinct to clamp his hands over his ears.

Benny’s mind was racing a thousand miles an hour. “Dean, please!” He pleaded, but it was no use. His voice was raw, he hadn’t screamed this much in a long time. Horror and bleakness were crawling into his very center and creating a gaping black hole, because, damnit, _what could he do_?

The boy was clutching at him, crying, and fading away and there was _nothing_ Benny could do.

Light -- _soul, Benny realized_ \-- was building up in the tiny arm of little Dean Winchester, getting whiter and doubling in form every second. Benny felt Dean’s tears fall onto his knuckle and could do nothing as Dean released Benny’s arm with one hand and wiped away the shining snot that had piled above his lip. Benny could do nothing as the sheer amount of light made him shut his eyes.

There was absolutely nothing he could do as Dean calmed his weeping for a second, and if anything, that scared Benny so much more. He almost looked like he had accepted his fate, and Benny was frozen still when Dean bent down to press an childish, innocent peck on Benny’s forehead.

That’s when Benny gripped Dean closer, amazed he was still able to touch Dean and not have his fingers slip through the light. Suddenly the old vampire was laughing hysterically. “You think I’m gonna let you go again, brother?” No, not again. Not this time.

He tucked the surprised, tear-stained child under his chin again, just like he had after the borderwalker attack, and he hung on tight.

And then the world exploded, and Benny felt like his insides were being pulled out of his body.

In a flash of tremendous force that rocked Purgatory down to its very core --which upset the more introverted creatures very much-- the two figures were gone. Then the wind began blowing softly through the trees, and the little river began running its water over the rocks once more. Time had begun again.

The only evidence that they two beings had left in the haste of their rushed departure was one double-sided ax, created from the bones of a lamia and a piece of timber.

 

 

Everything was pitch black when he came into consciousness, and he quickly figured out that he was standing.

Benjamin Charles Lafitte had been bite at, tortured, poisoned, and literally decapitated --twice. Nothing compared to the _discomfort_ he had the pleasure of feeling at this very moment. He was pretty sure his intestines had been ripped from his body and tied around a tree before someone decided to break all his ribs.

Sounds came slowly to him, then sight, and then he breathed for the first time in a while. It made his chest hurt. Everything was blurry at first, and Benny didn’t exactly recognize the fuzzy gray everywhere. Soon it came clear to him that the gray was concrete walls, and he wasn’t exactly in a friendly looking place. Closing his eyes, he wanted to scratch at his face, but his hands didn’t want to move. In fact, he didn’t want to move at all. Not a single. Damn. Muscles. And he wasn’t going to until he was done feeling like he’d been trampled to deaf by the Budweiser Clydesdales.

“You look worried, fellas.”

Fuck that. Benny’s eyes snapped back open. He had known that voice. Hell, he knew that voice very well. It was the gruff voice of a man who was slightly shorter than his younger brother, and it was the voice of a man who Benny had listened to for hours on end.

He blinked furiously until his eyesight finally cooperated and let him actually see.

Benny was standing in the corner of a room between a wall and a table, and it became really clear, really quick what was happening. The man that owned the voice was sitting on a metal chair, hands strapped down and green eyes looking worriedly up at two figures, trying to smile reassuringly.

 _That_ was Dean.

Not little Dean with the octave voice and the wide, innocent eyes. No, this was Benny’s _taller_ Dean. From what he could tell, Dean had barely aged since the last time he saw him. There were no white hairs or more age lines. He wasn’t dressed in the clothes he had been in Purgatory as a kid, which was almost a disappointment. He had wanted to see a thirty-five year old Dean with Power Ranger shoes.

The vampire didn’t know what was going on or what had happened, but he stepped forward and called, “Dean!”

No one moved or paid attention. The tallest figure in the room, no doubt Sam Winchester himself --member one on Team Free Smartass-- had his back to Benny and didn’t even turn around. He splashed Dean with some water from a flask and Dean, if anything, only looked really annoyed.

Benny remembered what the littler Dean had been telling him. Telling him about how ‘the mark’ had twisted him and he had become the very thing that killed their mother; a demon. If that was the case, it was pretty easy to connect the dots and realize that what Sam had just splashed Dean with was holy water.

Had they cured him?

“Dean?” he tried one more time, but the hunter didn’t react.

So he really couldn’t see him. Benny looked down and immediately jumped into the corner in surprise. _His hands_. He held them up and wiggled his fingers. They were transparent, just like Dean had been before everything exploded.

Was Benny dead now? Again? For a final time?

And what the _hell_?

“Welcome back, Dean.” The grateful voice of Sam breathed.

The vampire took a deep breath through his nose, but found he couldn’t smell anything other than dust. His nose twitched.

He noticed Sam’s arm was in a black cast, and his shoulders were slumping in fatigue. To Benny’s surprise, _Hot Wings_ was standing next to Sam, and what the hell was seriously going on. Hot Wings was not dead and waswearing something that was definitely not a trench coat. Had the apocalypse started again? How much had Benny missed? He dies for a year or two and he comes back to see Sam with longer hair and Castiel with a whole new wardrobe? What the fuck is this kind of shit?

Benny’s eyes turned back to Dean. The Winchester’s jaw was clenching as he stared down intently at the floor. And all of a sudden Benny felt sad. No more was the face of a blameless child. No more round cheeks or freckles that stood out against the skin. This Dean was the hardened warrior version, with sharp lines and a more tanned body. The freckles didn’t stand out as much.

And he couldn’t see Benny. The vampire could only watch as Sam jerked forward, undid all the clasping on the bonds, and tried to help Dean stand up. The shorter Winchester’s body had other plans, and immediately collapsed back down into the chair.

“They can’t see you because you have no physique. It’s the same reason why you cannot seem to smell or hear anything to the degree you’re used to,” a new voice remarked leisurely.

Benny nearly stumbled backwards in reflex, and who knew what could have happened if he did. He might have fallen through the damn wall.

A tall figure in black materialized in front of the vampire. “You would have,” it assured.

_What?_

It --‘he’, it looked like; and sounded like-- tilted his head. He was a thin and boney looking creature, his face all unnaturally sharp and high cheekbones and an arched nose. He almost looked like the human version of a vultures Benny used to see all the time near the road in front of his house. Leaning almost carelessly against a dark cane, he was wearing a formal black suit and pants. The white of his button down shirt was a sharp contrast to the all the black, and his black hair was slicked so much that it almost looked oily. He seemed content just staring curiously at Benny.

 _It could see Benny_. “Who are you?” the vampire asked, surprisingly calmly considering the situation. Maybe he was just too tired and confused to care.

The newest arrival took a while to actually speak, “Benjamin --Benny, you like to be called, instead of something more practical like ‘Ben’?-- Lafitte, you have caused much hub-bub,” The voice did not at all match the body at all. Benny had expected a raspy voice. A feeble, starving voice for a starving looking man.

“Wrong Horseman. You’re thinking of Famine,” He corrected Benny with a condescending voice as if he was a teacher correcting a sixth grader’s word tense. ‘ _No, Benny, not ‘boughted’, it’s just ‘bought’_.’ The being chuckled lowly to itself, “If I was Famine, you’d be in quite a pinch.”

Horseman? _Famine_? Was he talking about the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse? Benny’s eyes widened. He wanted to take a step back, but feared going right through the wall just like the man said Benny would. He had heard Dean talking about the Four Horseman before.

They had been sitting under a tree together in Purgatory, looking up at the sky, when Dean went into this rant about how he saved the world with his brother. About how they used the Four Horsemen's rings to open up the cage to trap Lucifer again. It took some time before Benny actually believed him though. At first he thought he had managed find out that only human in history who had found his way into Purgatory was insane.

The Horseman rose an inquisitive brow. "Can you use elimination to guess which Horseman I am?"

Was... was he turning this into some type of game? Benny glanced at what was going on with Dean, who was currently leaning his head back, eyes closed as the two other men fussed over him. He had to make sure Dean was okay before he gave his full attention to one of the most powerful beings on Earth.

"Flattery will get you nowhere," said the awaiting Horseman. He tapped his cane, now impatient, against the hard and unwelcoming concrete. "Come now."

The vampire gave the Horseman a thorough look over. He had already said he wasn't Famine, so that only left War, Pestilence, and Death, right? But the Winchesters had killed three Horsemen already, so that only left one. "Death," Benny said grimly.

"That's correct," Death the Horseman looked close to smiling, but he wasn't quite there yet.

Death. Benny whistled. “Shit, son.”

He was in the presence of _Death_. It was just his luck that this would happen to him. His life was odd already, but now it was reaching Winchester odd. Speaking of Winchesters… Benny made a sweeping motion to the rest of the room and the furiously talking men. "You here for 'em? Dean's human now." He asked it almost smugly. If the Horseman had come to kill a dangerous demon, he had just missed him. And begrudgingly, Benny had to give Hot Wings and Dean’s brother an extra brownie point for figuring out how to cure him.

Death looked around too, and Benny noticed his dark eyes lingering on Dean. "Oh, Benjamin, on the contrary. I'm here for you." He said it without an ounce of sympathy.

Oh. _Of course he was_. Benny reacted within a fraction of a second. He didn't really think. Scratch that, he hadn't been thinking at all; just doing.

He twisted around and made a desperate attempt to grab the table and push it in front of him in some sort of pathetic attempt at a barrier, but his transparent fingers slipped right through the chilly metal. Shit, he was screwed. Again. Benny knew he wouldn’t be getting out of this, he’d been raised on the fables that taught a kid that you couldn’t out run death.

He swerved around to a disappointed looking Horseman. "Please… sir," Benny added for good measure. "I can't leave him now. Not after what happened down south, it must have been so trau--"

"He doesn't remember any of what aspired in Purgatory." Merciless and straight to the point.

Benny's hand dropped back limply to his side. "Pardon? That can't be right." _Dean_ was there with him. And not just Dean, the _soul_ of Dean. _Dean_ Dean. "He has to r'member somethin’--"

Death interrupted him with a hum. "He might, a little," the Horseman gave him a look when Benny started opening his mouth to interrupt, and the vampire shut his trap. "But only in the deep crevasses in his very soul. Perhaps he’ll experience rare flashes of what occurred only when he's in his deepest of sleeps. Benjamin, only a fraction of Dean experienced with you what you two experienced."

His mouth wasn't working very well, and neither was his head. No, Benny couldn't believe that. All of that had to have stuck in Dean’s noggin, _some of that had to have stuck_.

"A fraction," Death repeated in that cool, unemotional voice of his. "One-one hundred and seventy-eighths of his soul if you desire the exact number." He took a step closer to the vampire, and Benny stepped back. "Now, don't look so crushed, it's time for you to go back home, Benjamin."

Home? Back to Purgatory? He barely heard the distant murmurs of the three other men in the room. Benny was too busy being scared out of his suspenders. "Wait!" Benny said desperately as his shoulders slouched. "I beg of you, wait. Do I have to go back to Purgatory? I mean--"

The sound Death made would be most like a harrumph. "You and Mr. Dean Winchester managed to completely freeze Purgatory for a whole _thirty_ seconds," Death rose a sardonic, thin eyebrow. "Are you aware of how much trouble you could have managed? We are lucky nothing horrendous came out your little stunt." He made it sound like one more second would have caused a few natural disasters or nuclear war.

"But I have a body," Benny tried to reason. He would get on his damn knees and beg if he had to. Well, he hoped he had a body. And he was on Earth now. Sure, a free monster soul just sorta here, but he was on Earth. "We can go dig the old thing up."

"Did you not hear me clear, Benjamin Charles Lafitte? It is not your time to be up here."

Benny hadn’t been this uncomfortable since he walked into his parents being all kisses and aggressive rubbing in the kitchen when he was eleven. "Can you..." The vampire paused, “Can you at least tell me what was happenin'? I just wanna know the whole story."

Death looked both surprised and content with Benny's giving in. "What part to do wish to know about?"

Like hell Benny knew which part, because he didn’t know anything. The Horseman wouldn't even let Benny have his last wish peacefully. It took some organizing of his thoughts before he asked carefully, "What happened? How did Dean and I get back to Earth?"

"You are not supposed to be back on Earth," Death pointed at Benny with one bony finger, almost as boney as the borderwalkers’, "You were not supposed to hang on to the soul of Dean Winchester and hitch a free ride."

This was not making Benny feel better.

"Dean's brother and angel friend were curing him," Death hesitated and corrected himself. "Cured' him of his taint. As soon as the demonized, messy gunk was obliterated, his real soul snapped back into place," the Horseman gave Benny a pointed stare. "All of his soul, even the tiniest missing piece, which happened to accidentally break away in the tainting to land in Purgatory."

Death said this all so simply as if it was on the old Sunday newspapers. "You were pouring your attention on just a tiny piece of soul, a thing of pure emotion. And compared to Dean as a whole, of no importance." The Horseman's calm gaze turned serious, and Benny's skin crawled. "He will not recall these event."

Much to Benny's relief, the Horseman's voice smoothed itself out again, and he gave the vampire an impressed look. "Do you even realize for a second that you, a measly vampire, are they second being to ever escape Purgatory? And now you’ve escaped yet again, and this time only on a spiritual plan. You are lucky that I find your little... situation... interesting, and do not annihilate you on the spot for breaking the rules. You could be a danger, and I obliterate dangers."

Shit.

"However," Death spared Dean another glance, and seemed amused to see both Sam and Castiel hovering over him like worried parents, "if that was the case," he said slowly, "the Winchester's would have been dead, and stayed dead, a long time ago. Now," the Horsemen held out a bony, pale hand. "Let's get you home. And do please hurry, I have a tight schedule."

He stared for a good bit at that outstretched. Weighing his options, Benny glanced all about him. He didn't even know where he was; some sort of sex torture dungeon.

Benny turned his staring to Dean. Sam and Castiel were now just letting the hunter rest himself and probably let him digest whatever he remembered as a demons. If he remembered. For Dean's sake, he sure hope he didn't. And what if Benny was allowed to stay on Earth? What would he do? Would it be the exact same as last time? Dean wouldn't remember any of the domestic fantasies he and Benny had come up with. He'd probably hate to be tied down now.

Benny wondered if Dean still wanted the Yorkie.

 _The Yorkie_. “Hold on,” Benny interjected before remembering that if the being in front of him so much as touched him, he’d be a goner for sure. He cringed and mumbled out a ‘‘pologizes’, and Death looked more amused than angry so Benny figured he was allowed to live. The old vamp looked at back and forth between Dean and Death curiously. “Why was Dean a little eight year old in Purgatory?”

“Because that was the shape is soul manifested as,” Death seemed to be getting bored with all his questions.

But still Benny pushed, “But why? Is it just because the small fraction of him the came down?”

For a second the vampire could almost swear that the Horseman’s eyes had lost its solemn gleam. “No matter the amount that fell, his soul would have always manifested into a little boy.” He eyed Benny sharply. “One might say Dean Winchester, at soul, is still a confused little boy who craves stability.”

It sounded so simple coming from the Horseman’s mouth, but Benny’s mouth went into the shape of a little ‘o’.

He understood.

“Now, are you going to go back willingly, or must I have to move and force you?” Death asked oh so politely.

Did Benny want to go back willingly? Did he even really want to stay on Earth after the last time? An idea drifted itself into Benny’s head, and he wanted to chuckle. He could just play his own game of “Poor Man’s Luck” to decide.

But the thing was he didn’t need to.

"I'll go," Benny nodded at Death, but he kept his eyes on Dean. The man’s face looked so guilty and his eyes were more sunken in than the last time. He was suffering again.

"Splendid," Death knocked his cane on the ground. Once. Twice. Again. Four times in total. It made a little crack in the cement, unbeknownst to the two hunters and the angel. Well, it started as a crack, but then it pulsed and a stream of silvery liquid began seeping forth from the hole. They watched as it defied gravity and swirled into the air, Death pausing every few seconds to see it Benny was impressed (he’s gone through a lot of shit these past twenty-four hours, so he wasn’t, much to the Horseman’s disappointment). It didn't stop bending and growing and twisting and folding until Benny was staring at a silver portal in the middle of the air.

Benny could only say one thing. "So you're not gonna behead me?"

"Not unless you take me as a barbarian," The Horseman did the most elegant version of a shrug that Benny had ever seen. "And given you do not hold a physical shape, it would be impossible."

Benny felt too scared to mention something along the lines of how Death, out of anyone, should be able to spiritually gank him. But then the vampire realized since he just thought it, Death probably already knew it.

Thankfully the Horseman was too polite to say that he, in fact, did hear it.

"Can I at least ask somethin'? One last time, I swear on my suspenders." Benny pushed his luck as he re-folded the white cuffs of his shirt. If he was going to die again, at least this time he’d go with nice(ish) clothes.

His Momma would be proud.

He stared at Dean, just one more time, to solidify how weird it was to see him all grown up and normal. Gone was the little cute kid that splashed his toes in a river with him. Instead there was a weather beaten man who was so, so incredibly strong and loyal. It took more than he was willing to admit to tear his eyes away to focus on Death, who hadn’t said he couldn’t ask something, so he just sort of went for it, "Would it be alright if I left somethin' here? Could that physically happen?"

Death looked down and followed where Benny's hand disappeared into his coat’s pocket before he nodded solemnly. "I guess I can allow that. Just once though. And in return, I better not see you for a long time."

The vampire was quick about it. Benny placed it right dab in the center of the table by the corner, the same one he had failed to use as a barrier between him and Death. Even though he told himself he wouldn’t, his traitorous eyes looked back at Dean Winchester. Deciding it was now or never, Benny walked up the man --he went through Sam and Castiel like he was a ghost, and he sent them both a childish smirk-- and soaked up how he looked. It could be awhile before he saw him again.

Hot Wings was saying something about a mark of some Cain man, and Sam was just blabbering about how relieved he was to have his brother back; Benny would have done the same.

Benny didn't stop getting close to the little hunter until he was a good half a foot away from his drained face. He crouched down, but not as much as he had done for Dean when he was an eight year old. Of course Dean didn't notice him, he just kept on looking tiredly up at the other two.

The freckles were slightly more faded like Benny had expected, but they were still in the same exact spot, and for some reason that was really reassuring.

A feeling began over piling inside the vamp. It was very similar to the one he had had when he and little Dean were clutching each other and crying like small babies about getting a nice house with a white picket fence. And very similar to the feeling he had at the river side when Dean had promised to bring him back. It _was_ the exact same feeling he got when he and much taller Dean were working in tandem and preparing to take down his old nest.

Though he had felt it at different levels, it was still that gooey emotion known as love.

"You better come an’ find me when you're ready, chief," he didn't know why he was whispering, it just seemed like the right thing to do.

Overcome by this feeling, Benny reached out and held Dean's face in his hands. Or, at least, he pretended to, for his hands couldn't exactly grab things right at the moment.

Benny was the wimp during this goodbye. He felt the stinging sensation of tears behind his eyes again as he closed his eyes and returned Dean's gift. He pressed his dry lips to bigger Dean's forehead, right where little Dean had done to him before they went up in lights.

After Benny determined that he had poured in just enough emotion, he leaned back and nodded, satisfied. "You owe me a beer, _mon petit chasseur_. And a proper kiss now that you're actually legal and not a cute, innocent cherub." Benny stopped to grin cheekily, “Well, I guess you’re still cute.”

This time he didn't look back when he moved away. He had drunk Dean in enough to last a lifetime. Dean Winchester needed a haircut, it was too fluffy.

Benny went up to Death willingly this time and stared into the swirling portal. "What about my ax?" He asked. He had left it somewhere on the ground in Purgatory, and he sorta needed it.

It was an interesting experience to watch Death actually smile. There was no show of teeth and it was a thin-lipped one, but it seemed a little genuine if not a little secretive. "It seems you will soon find out that answer yourself."

Benny hated vague-ass answers. "Will I ever come back to Earth again? Will Dean come and find me?"

“Did you not just swear on your suspenders that you had already asked your last question? You are a very inquisitive creature, I don’t quite know if I like that yet.” The Horseman said this, but Death put a finger to his lips and revealed, "And I can't say." And he didn't say, or give any hints that Dean might. But maybe that was hint all by itself. "Are you ready to return home, Benjamin?”

His job was done for now. He had experiences the most incredible and terrifying twenty-four hours in his life, and he had gotten Dean’s soul, no matter how small it was, back home.

He nodded.

Benny shook out his arms and legs, getting them ready to sprint like his life depended it as soon hit solid ground again. He took one last deep breath, counted to three, whispered a ‘hell yeah’ that would have made Dean proud, and then Benjamin Charles Lafitte jumped in, the first ever being to enter Purgatory for a _third_ time.

Certainly something for the record books. Too bad the druids _and_ the Men of Letters had been slaughtered off so they both couldn't record it down.

 

**EPILOGUE**

 

Dean Winchester came down to their little dungeon for a certain book on spells that Sammy had left down there. The whiny man baby had moaned and complained all about how he couldn’t _possibly_ get it himself with his arm in a sling. ‘ _It was really heavy, Dean. Heavy enough for two hands_.’ Sam had given his black sling a pointed look and used the dreaded puppy dog eyes.

He blamed it on the damn eyes, but it was clear as day it just wasn’t on Sam’s convincing kicked dog look.

So here he was. Dean wiggled his fingers, preparing, grasped the edges of the shelves, and pushed them to the side with a breathless huff. They slid back with a muffled screech of protest that drilled into his ears. Dean’s eyes immediately squinted and it took a few seconds of that anticipation-filled silence before he sneezed loudly, the echo mocking him. _Damn dust._

Today wasn’t just his day, was it? As soon as he took one step forward, he promptly tripped on a crack in the cement ground and stumbled into their dungeon in a flurry of limbs, dust, and freckles.

“C’mon, man,” the hunter groaned as he brushed himself off. He angrily rubbed at his nose, still feeling those tingling aftereffects of a sneeze, as he looked around the small space. Flipping on the light, Dean thought about all the pranks he could pull on Sam to get him back. Light flashed in the corner, and Dean’s eyes zeroed in on it. It had come from their steel rolling table.

For a second he thought that they might have forgotten any knives or other equipment. Seemed like a reckless thing that either of them would do. He walked closer and furrowed his brows. It was a circular and pitch black, not the metallic silver of any needles or knives.

Dean’s eyebrows raised when he saw that it was a rock. A pretty screwed up rock too. It had an unnatural jagged edge; messy, like someone had cracked it against something. Dean carefully ran his finger down the broken edge --it looked sharp enough to cut-- before picking it up and testing its weight. It was pretty solid.

And cold. Was it really that chilly down here?

The hunter frowned. He gently threw the rock into the air and caught it like he would a baseball. Dean Winchester glanced from the steel table to his little surprise find.

“How the hell did a rock get down here?”

 

**FIN**

**Author's Note:**

> I just realized the acronym for my fic is 'OWWW'. 
> 
> Comments and kudos are so very appreciated and see you next year! uwu


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